The essay takes its point of departure from Monod's reading of dialectical materialism in Chance and Necessity. A passage of Engels's Dialectics of Nature, which identifies Spinoza's concept of causa sui with the Hegelian concept of interaction [Wechselwirkung], provides the opportunity to examine the consequences of Monod's claims more closely. Using Spinoza's philosophy as a litmus test, the essay attempts to demonstrate the debt of Engels's materialism to Hegel's Science of Logic by tracing the development of the concept of Wechselwirkung (...) in classical German philosophy. A profound difference between the Spinozan and Hegelian concepts becomes apparent: while the concept of Wechselwirkung implies a totality present to itself as simultaneity, permitting the flow of a linear, homogenous and empty time upon which stages of development can be inscribed, the concept of causa sui implies a totality without closure, a totality whose eternity is identified with the necessary and infinite network of modal durations. The essay concludes by suggesting that Spinoza's concept of causa sui allows us to rethink the relation between freedom and necessity in the Marxist tradition in conjunctural and aleatory terms. (shrink)

The article proposes a comparison between Althusser and Derrida on the question of temporality through the two Marx's reading sub specie theatri set by the two authors in Pour Marx and in Spectres de Marx. From this comparison emerges that the althusserian theory of temporality is beyond the teleology of the hegelo-marxist tradition, but also of the messianism without messiah that is at the core of the Derrida's interpretation of Marx strongly influenced by Benjamin. In this sense, in a provocative (...) way, it can be said that in Althusser the escatology is à la cantonade.O autor propõe um confronto entre Althusser e Derrida acerca da questão da temporalidade, focalizando a leitura que os dois autores fazem de Marx sub specie theatri. A partir desse confronto, emerge uma teoria da temporalidade althusseriana, a qual se encontra para além, quer da teleologia da tradição hegeliano-marxista, quer do messianismo sem Messias proposto por Derrida, em sua releitura benjaminiana de Marx. Nesse sentido, a escatologia em Althusser é pensável somente à la cantonade. (shrink)

For more than a century after its appearance on the modern philosophical scene, Spinoza’s philosophy was considered surprising and even scandalous for its assertion of the oneness or singularity of substance. From Bayle’s early Dictionary article to Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy, the core of Spinoza’s philosophy was said to be its unprecedented gesture of making God the sole res that could be thought through the concept of substance. Substance, according to definition 3 of part I of the (...) Ethics, is “that which is in itself and is conceived through itself.” The enormous emphasis placed on this move by the interpretative tradition almost into the twentieth century managed, however, to obscure every other dimension of Spinoza’s thought, so that Spinoza’s thought was simply a metaphysics of the oneness of substance. It is this coupling of Spinozism and the metaphysics of substance that I want to undo. In line with a series of interpretative developments in France over the last thirty years, I want to dispel this identification by employing a paradoxical formulation. Far from being a metaphysics of substance, I contend that Spinoza’s philosophy is instead an ontology of relation. By emphasizing his negation of the substantiality of what he calls res singulares, we can locate Spinoza’s originality less in having posited the existence of a single substance—Letter 50 in fact suggests that substance can only “improperly” be called “single” or “one”—than in having laid out the foundation for this ontology of relation. (shrink)

For more than a century after its appearance on the modern philosophical scene, Spinoza’s philosophy was considered surprising and even scandalous for its assertion of the oneness or singularity of substance. From Bayle’s early Dictionary article to Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy, the core of Spinoza’s philosophy was said to be its unprecedented gesture of making God the sole res that could be thought through the concept of substance. Substance, according to definition 3 of part I of the (...) Ethics, is “that which is in itself and is conceived through itself.” The enormous emphasis placed on this move by the interpretative tradition almost into the twentieth century managed, however, to obscure every other dimension of Spinoza’s thought, so that Spinoza’s thought was simply a metaphysics of the oneness of substance. It is this coupling of Spinozism and the metaphysics of substance that I want to undo. In line with a series of interpretative developments in France over the last thirty years, I want to dispel this identification by employing a paradoxical formulation. Far from being a metaphysics of substance, I contend that Spinoza’s philosophy is instead an ontology of relation. By emphasizing his negation of the substantiality of what he calls res singulares, we can locate Spinoza’s originality less in having posited the existence of a single substance—Letter 50 in fact suggests that substance can only “improperly” be called “single” or “one”—than in having laid out the foundation for this ontology of relation. (shrink)

The paper examines Althusser’s readings of Gramsci, from the first critical notes and annotations to his writings on the crisis of Marxism. It highlights the profound ambivalence of Althusser’s interpretations. On the one hand, Gramsci is presented as a precursor, as the only figure within the Marxist tradition deemed to have attempted to think the superstructure, and in particular the political. On the other side, the Gramscian corpus is criticized as the paradigmatic instance of a conception of temporality and politics (...) with which Althusser is in disagreement. Regarding the Althusserian critique, we here identify two distinct phases starting out from a critique of the lack of knowledge of the specific status of science in general, especially of the science of history, characteristic of the second half of the sixties, Althusser would, in the late seventies, formulate a critique of the Gramscian concept of hegemony which, in his view, erases the question of class domination. (shrink)

The Marxian Thesis about the role of violence in History, as it is enunciated in The Capital, is investigated through an analysis of the Hegelian character of its syntax, and the way Engels develops it; a non-teleological interpretation of the thesis is then defended, one that understands that violence presents a plurality of forms, a pervasive character and a heavy materiality.Trata-se de investigar a tese marxiana acerca do papel da violência na história, tal como enunciada em O Capital, analisando sua (...) sintaxe de matriz hegeliana e o modo como Engels articula tal tese, para então defender uma interpretação não-teleológica da violência, segundo a qual esta apresenta uma pluralidade de formas, um caráter totalmente difuso e uma pesada materialidade. (shrink)

Il testo che qui presentiamo riproduce l’Introduzione al volume miscellaneo Il transindividuale. Soggetti, relazioni, mutazioni, a cura di E. Balibar e V. Morfino, Mimesis, Milano 2014.

The article considers some explicit or implicit and yet fundamental references to Althusser in Balibar’s text about transindividuality. Of particular significance is the attempt to think of an articulation of ideology and the unconscious which brings into play the three authors Balibar evokes—Spinoza, Marx, and Freud—so as to reactivate them beyond Simondon’s own theory of transindividuality.

Vittorio Morfino draws out the implications of the dynamic Spinoza-Machiavelli encounter by focusing on the concepts of causality, temporality and politics. This allows him to think through the relationship between ontology and politics, leading to an understanding of history as a complex and plural interweaving of different rhythms.

Can the Marxist tradition still provide new resources for thinking the specificity of historical time? This volume proposes to transform our understanding of Marxism by reconnecting with the 'subterranean currents' of plural temporalities that have traversed its development. From Rousseau and Sieyès to Marx, from Bloch to Althusser, from Gramsci to Pasolini and Postcolonialism, the chapters in this volume seek both to valorise neglected resources from Marxism's contradictory history, and also to read against the grain its orthodox and heterodox currents. (...) Privileging not the single time of historical development, but the plural temporalities that intertwine in and constitute any given historical conjuncture, and arguing against merely subjectivist theories of temporal multiplicity, this volume studies the articulation of the real, plural temporalities of mass political action. Comprehending their dynamics is a necessary precondition for a renewed politics of emancipation.Contributors include: Luca Basso, Stefano Bracaletti, Mauro Farnesi Camellone, Fabio Frosini, Augusto Illuminati, Nicola Marcucci, Vittorio Morfino, Luca Pinzolo, Peter D. Thomas and Massimiliano Tomba. (shrink)

Plural Temporality traces out a dynamic historical relationship between the texts of Spinoza and of Althusser. It interrogates Spinoza's text through Althusser and vice versa regarding the question of materialism.

Analysing the notebooks and the references to Lucretius in Marx's works, Morfino concludes that it is possible to excavate a major discontinuity in Marx's interpretation. The Lucretius of the juvenile notebooks on Epicureanism, who functions as a model of abstract self-consciousness, is overtaken, in the scattered references from the period of Die deutsche Ideologie and Das Kapital, by a Lucretius for whom nature becomes a continuous process of transformation of its parts - a process in which the human species (...) is itself immersed. (shrink)

In this essay I consider the fundamental features of Althusser’s reading of Machiavelli in its historical development, starting from the 1962 lecture course, passing through the 1972–76 course published with the title of Machiavel et nous as well as the writings of 1977–78, concluding with the group of writings written during the 1980s. I show that any teleological reading that sees in the final writings the truth finally revealed of the path of Althusser’s reading of Machiavelli should be rejected, and (...) instead present the thesis that Althusser, through the figure of Machiavelli, theoretically reworks his relationship with the Party. (shrink)

Trata-se de investigar a tese marxiana acerca do papel da violência na história, tal como enunciada em O Capital, analisando sua sintaxe de matriz hegeliana e o modo como Engels articula tal tese, para então defender uma interpretação não-teleológica da violência, segundo a qual esta apresenta uma pluralidade de formas, um caráter totalmente difuso e uma pesada materialidade.

O autor estabelece uma comparação entre Althusser e Derrida a partir da questão da temporalidade, por meio da leitura que os dois autores propõem de Marx sub specie theatri. A partir disso emerge uma teoria da temporalidade em Althusser que está além tanto da teleologia da tradição hegeliano-marxista, quanto do messianismo sem messias proposto por Derrida em sua releitura benjaminiana de Marx. Nesse sentido, a escatologia em Althusser só é pensável à la cantonade.

A partire dagli anni Settanta del secolo scorso è stata sottolineata a più riprese l’originalità del concetto spinoziano di imaginatio e allo stesso tempo il suo ruolo chiave all’interno del sistema. Nella storia del pensiero Occidentale, da Aristotele a Wittgnestein passando per Kant, l’immaginazione costituisce una soglia, il punto di raccordo tra mondo e pensiero. Ma l’immaginazione costituisce una soglia anche in un altro senso: per la modernità filosofica l’immaginazione costituisce la soglia tra interno ed esterno.Ora, che cosa accade dell’immaginazione (...) una volta che si rifiuti la mossa cartesiana della separazione di un interno e un esterno, mossa che senza dubbio fonda la linea filosofica dominante della modernità? Come deve essere ripensata? Per comprenderlo è necessario rileggere Spinoza nell'ottica di una ‘ontologia della relazione’. (shrink)

Um dos mal-entendidos mais persistentes que cercam a filosofia leibniziana consiste, sem dúvida, em querer ver nela uma forma de espinosismo. Por outro lado, toda oposição que se faz entre Leibniz e Espinosa no plano teórico aparentemente não ultrapassa a visão hegeliana da relação entre os dois filósofos como oposição entre universalidade e individualidade. Pretende-se aqui, diferentemente, confrontar os dois filósofos em relação à questão da individualidade confrontando os seus prolongamentos teóricos do século XX. De um lado, a intersubjetividade husserliana (...) como prolongamento teórico da monadologia; de outro, o conceito simondoniano de transindividualidade que, com Balibar, permite-nos prolongar o pensamento espinosano na contemporaneidade. Tentar-se-á marcar toda a distância que separa estes dois sistemas segundo uma abordagem que não se limita a repetir o velho refrão hegeliano. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyse the problem of monstrosity as a key point of Lucretius’s theory through the opposite interpretations of Bergson and Canguilhem. According to Canguilhem, Lucretius’s philosophy can be described as follows: before the constitution of the ‘pacts of the nature,’ forms proliferate in the kingdom of Chaos. Following the pacts, the Kingdom of the form and of the Cosmos is established. Following Bergson, on the contrary, Lucretius’s pacts of nature represent the ‘kingdom of necessity’ and the ‘eternal (...) law of nature.’ Not in the sense that the persistence of forms is ensured, but rather in the sense of the necessity of the combinations of atoms. Hence, the form’s constitution is not secured by the pacts of nature, and a monster is not an exception to them. Both interpretations paradigmatically illustrate what is at stake in the concept of monstrosity, namely the meaning of Lucretian determinism and its relation with chance. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyse the problem of monstrosity as a key point of Lucretius’s theory through the opposite interpretations of Bergson and Canguilhem. According to Canguilhem, Lucretius’s philosophy can be described as follows: before the constitution of the ‘pacts of the nature,’ forms proliferate in the kingdom of Chaos. Following the pacts, the Kingdom of the form and of the Cosmos is established. Following Bergson, on the contrary, Lucretius’s pacts of nature represent the ‘kingdom of necessity’ and the ‘eternal (...) law of nature.’ Not in the sense that the persistence of forms is ensured, but rather in the sense of the necessity of the combinations of atoms. Hence, the form’s constitution is not secured by the pacts of nature, and a monster is not an exception to them. Both interpretations paradigmatically illustrate what is at stake in the concept of monstrosity, namely the meaning of Lucretian determinism and its relation with chance. (shrink)

Among the Althusserian writings of the 1980s, the authors focus their attention on the most significant one, “The Underground Current of Materialism of Encounter”, which deals mainly with the theme of encounter - rather than those of emptiness or nothingness, considered as secondary by the authors. In this perspective, it is paradoxically the work of Darwin which becomes a crucial reference, helping a Marxist theory of History to emancipate itself from any teleological paradigm.

This paper analyzes some of the theoretical formulations of Ernst Bloch, Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser that indicate the way in which the problem of plural temporality appears in the marxist tradition of thought. Acknowledging that the term “plural temporality” is not used explicitly in the work of these authors, it is seeked to show that, however, marxism has not always thought of history in a univocal and stable way, but has been able to recognize, in different ways and at (...) different times, the complexity of the plurality of historical time. The aim of the work is to account for certain traces of plural temporality within marxist tradition that contribute to strengthening a critique of the linear and progressive model of historical time. (shrink)

The Radical Machiavelli: Politics, Philosophy and Languageoffers a partial and even partisan reading of Machiavelli, whose thought continues to divide interpreters, forcing them to confront their responsibility as contemporary thinkers in a global society.

Reading 'Capital''s promotion of the Spinozist sources of Marxism has stimulated a series of important studies in several major zones of Marxist theoretical work. A more general reassessment of Spinoza's thought in the project of a 'radical Enlightenement' provides the opportunity to consider critically the contribution of these studies to the elaboration of Marxist political theory. Vittorio Morfino, well known Italian scholar of Spinoza and Althusser, proposes to study Engels's reading of Spinoza in the context of the inheritance (...) of classical German idealism in the Marxist theory of history. He argues that Spinoza provides resources for rethinking Marxist notions of temporality and structure. The result is a theory of conjunctural analysis, in distinction from 'normative' and 'prescriptive' perspectives. (shrink)

Reading 'Capital''s promotion of the Spinozist sources of Marxism has stimulated a series of important studies in several major zones of Marxist theoretical work. A more general reassessment of Spinoza's thought in the project of a 'radical Enlightenement' provides the opportunity to consider critically the contribution of these studies to the elaboration of Marxist political theory. Vittorio Morfino, well known Italian scholar of Spinoza and Althusser, proposes to study Engels's reading of Spinoza in the context of the inheritance (...) of classical German idealism in the Marxist theory of history. He argues that Spinoza provides resources for rethinking Marxist notions of temporality and structure. The result is a theory of conjunctural analysis, in distinction from 'normative' and 'prescriptive' perspectives. (shrink)

Resenha de: Vittorio Morfino, Intersoggettività o transindividualità. Materiali per un’alternativa, Castel di San Pietro Romano, Manifestolibri, 2022.

Trata-se da resenha do livro O tempo e a ocasião, o encontro Espinosa Maquiavel, de Vittorio Morfino.

Resenha do livro "A ciência das conexões singulares", de Vittorio Morfino.

Background The 2020-2021 coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is just the latest epidemic event that requires us to rethink and change our understanding of health. Health should no longer be conceived only in relation to human beings, but in unitary terms, as a dimension that connects humans, animals, plants, and the environment (holistic view, One Health). In general, alterations occurring in this articulated chain of life trigger a domino effect. Methodology In this paper, we review the One Health paradigm in the light (...) of the Covid-19 pandemic and distinguish two approaches within it that might be dubbed the Prudent one and the Radical one. Each approach is structured in three levels – epistemological, medical, and ethical. Results In this way, we show how we humans can better address the pandemic today and how, in the future, we can treat the whole living system better, by renouncing our anthropocentric perspective on health. Conclusion We hold that the Prudent approach can be very helpful, and we discuss the medical and ethical issues related to it. We also consider the Radical view and the epistemological turn it requires compared to the Prudent one. (shrink)

The idea of social injustice is pivotal to much contemporary moral and political philosophy. Starting from a comprehensive and engaging account of the idea of social injustice, this book covers a whole range of issues, including distributive justice, exploitation, torture, moral motivations, democratic theory, voting behavior, and market socialism.

A new class of visuomotor neuron has been recently discovered in the monkey’s premotor cortex: mirror neurons. These neurons respond both when a particular action is performed by the recorded monkey and when the same action, performed by another individual, is observed. Mirror neurons appear to form a cortical system matching observation and execution of goal-related motor actions. Experimental evidence suggests that a similar matching system also exists in humans. What might be the functional role of this matching system? One (...) possible function is to enable an organism to detect certain mental states of observed conspecifics. This function might be part of, or a precursor to, a more general mind-reading ability. Two different accounts of mind-reading have been suggested. According to “theory theory‘, mental states are represented as inferred posits of a naive theory. According to “simulation theory‘, other people’s mental states are represented by adopting their perspective: by tracking or matching their states with resonant states of one’s own. The activity of mirror neurons, and the fact that observers undergo motor facilitation in the same muscular groups as those utilized by target agents, are findings that accord well with simulation theory but would not be predicted by theory theory. (shrink)

This article rejects the received view that Post-Truth is a new, unprecedented political phenomenon. By showing that Truth and Post-Truth share the same genesis, this article will submit the idea of a Consensus Theory of Post-Truth. Part 1 looks at the difference between Post-Truth, lies and bullshit. Part 2 suggests reasons behind the current preoccupation with Post-Truth. Part 3 focuses on Habermas’s influential consensus theory of truth to suggest that truth and Post-Truth have more in common than is generally assumed. (...) Part 4 puts forward the Consensus Theory of Post-Truth. Part 5 suggests three ways to emasculate the potentially destructive effect of Post-Truth on democratic society. (shrink)