This paper aims at exploring a particular dimension of the affinity between Gilles Deleuze and pragmatism: his ontology of the virtual, which results in a metaphysics of power. In Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza, the essence of an entity is identical to its power: what can it do? substitutes the Socratic ti esti? as the leading philosophical question. This shift, operated by Spinoza and given a new and adequate ontology by Deleuze, is very close to Peirce’s pragmatic revolution: if Deleuze’s virtual (...) ideas are identical to the range of variations in power and affects that a body may go through, Peirce defines meaning in terms of the whole range of possible effects that an idea would produce if taken to be true. Contradictory as it may sound, the concept of the virtual entails something like a pragmaticism of the singular, which informs every aspect of Deleuze’s philosophy: his doctrine of faculties and his theory of praxis will be used as instances of this pervasiveness. This pragmatist reading of Deleuze could possibly shape an alternative path for contemporary pragmatism: instead of valorising its “edifying” (linguistic, historicistic, humanistic) tendency, Deleuze allows to highlight the vitality of the second vein of pragmatism, the “constructive,” empiricist, speculative, even metaphysical one. (shrink)

Questo articolo si propone come contributo alla teoria della rêverie degli elementi naturali sviluppata da Gaston Bachelard. Si argomenterà che la contemplazione del mare sollecita una visione particolare del mondo che può affettare le nostre idee del tempo e della memoria. Sulla scia del famoso detto di Eraclito, quella del fiume è sempre stata l’immagine principale per descrivere la natura inafferrabile del tempo; ma il mare, il luogo dove finiscono tutti i fiumi, fornisce una perfetta analogia naturale per la conservazione (...) del «passato in sé» attorno cui Henri Bergson ha costruito la sua teoria della durata e della memoria: niente scompare davvero, e così il passato viene dotato della consistenza e della vivida eternità che la filosofia tradizionale attribuiva all’essere. Intercessori dal panorama letterario, uniti alla considerazione filosofica di alcune immagini ricorrenti – specialmente quelle del relitto e della città sommersa – aiuteranno ad approssimare la rêverie marina al pensiero di Bergson, approssimazione che si compirà nella conclusione. (shrink)

This paper explores Whitehead’s concept of law as an immanent order, arguing that it can be successfully used to cover the whole semantic field denoted as ‘law’, and especially law in its juridical sense. After showing the features that make it more plausible and more desirable than the opposing view of law as a transcendent imposition, law will be defined as the expression of the modes of existence of individuals within their environment. It will then be tested as a key (...) for understanding the link between life and law and showing the inadequacy of Foucault and Agamben’s biopolitical reflections: if law is an immanent order, then life is identical with its own inherent normativity. Finally, drawing on Deleuze’s philosophy of right, the fundamental features of an immanent practice of law, a “speculative jurisprudence” which confirms the binding between law, life, and immanence, will be sketched as a proposal for a practical philosophy consistent with Whitehead’s process cosmology. (shrink)

At the turn of the twentieth century, the debate between supporters of internal and external relations showed how our assumptions on the nature of relations result in ontological, epistemic, and ethical commitments. In this debate, Alfred North Whitehead provided the most articulated and satisfying account through his “philosophy of the organism,” which holds relations to be internal yet vectorial, without excluding completely external relations. Today, the debate has become once again topical and constitutes a core issue for speculative realism. This (...) paper aims to show how the theory of external relations endorsed by some leading figures of speculative realism does not suffice to preserve the desiderata it was designed for, and how a more serious consideration of Whitehead’s theory would have beneficial effects on the ontological and ethical issues of this rejuvenated metaphysical discourse. (shrink)