Papers by Francesco Lesce
Laboratoire italien, 2024
This essay aims to clarify the methodological standpoint which, around the 1950s, led Ernesto De ... more This essay aims to clarify the methodological standpoint which, around the 1950s, led Ernesto De Martino to consider the “subaltern popular world” as a historical problem. Attention is paid to arguments whereby the author dignifies the subordinated condition of peasants in Southern Italy,
seeing their social awakening as the occasion to reflect on the limits of bourgeois political and cultural hegemony. In fact, these are key aspects to understanding in what sense, for De Martino, the Southern Question is of importance for a critical review of European ethnocentrism. On this
premise, the final part of the essay will discuss the author’s hypothesis of an “ecumenical” perspective in which the popular masses of Europe could act as mediators for a cultural and political project of truly universal interest.
The Owl's Flight, 2021
Arthur C. Danto adopts the Hegelian topic of the End-of-Art as a reference point concerning the h... more Arthur C. Danto adopts the Hegelian topic of the End-of-Art as a reference point concerning the historical link between art and knowledge in the contemporary era. The fundamental difference compared to Hegel is that in Danto’s
view art is not conceived as a figure of the Geist that historicizes itself. Danto’s
interest is limited to the reflective self-awareness of art, to which the Hegelian
Absolute Spirit acts as a model. Danto’s “non-specialist” approach to Hegel’s
thinking allows him to bring together not the whole system but some specific
theoretical instances on the order of an autonomous discourse. On this ground,
Danto’s confrontation essentially consists of four aspects: the “an-aesthetic” determination of art (self-reflexivity), the placement of art out of any historical-narrative frame (the end of art history), criticism of the speculative philosophy of art
(theory of philosophical “disenfranchisement”), and the recognition of freedom
as a specific character of art in the contemporary era (post-history).
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Aug 1, 2021
The article discusses some aspects of Deleuze's reinterpretation of Kantian aesthetics, specially... more The article discusses some aspects of Deleuze's reinterpretation of Kantian aesthetics, specially focusing on the theme of the sublime with a twofold goal. On the one hand, it is showed how Deleuze elaborates a theory of thought criticizing some implicit presuppositions of Kantism: i.e., the common sense and the agreement of the faculties. In that context, the critique of the "recognition" model takes on a special function in order to clarify the dynamics of the sublime. On the other, it is a matter of investigating the ethical theme marking the sublime experience: a moment where the disagreement of cognitive faculties gives rise to new values unrecognized and unrecognizable. By stimulating that disagreement of the faculties, sublime thus allows us to express and scrutinize, on the Kantian side, a theme Deleuze had already encountered in Nietzsche's thought: the creation of values.
Il Mulino -Rivisteweb, 2023
In the preparatory notes for the work on «cultural apocalypses» Ernesto De Martino interprets so... more In the preparatory notes for the work on «cultural apocalypses» Ernesto De Martino interprets some literary masterpieces as evidences that the historical European culture is in crisis. That interpretation is elaborated as part of a comparative investigation about anthropological risk. The focus is that our presence in the world is not an asset guaranteed once and for all, rather resulting from dramatic choices which, in difficult circumstances, may endlessly fail. This article highlights the dialectic of risk in religious life, which is understood by De Martino under various aspects: the magic, the myth, and the ritual. From this point of view, we will see how the decline of traditional religious forms in the face of modern secularism reveals itself in some decadent subjects – i.e, nausea, absurdity, boredom – dominating the literary works. Therefore, according to De Martino they become symptoms of a much wider risk concerning
the moral decay of the bourgeois world. In this crisis that does not seem to overcome itself, since it is lacking in its eschaton, De Martino sees the signs that Europe betrays the founding value of its the humanistic tradition, namely the historical reason, so dangerously embracing
the «end of history» idea.
Polemos. Materiali di filosofia e critica sociale, 2020
This essay is the result of a reflection putting in perspective the “archeology of the work of ar... more This essay is the result of a reflection putting in perspective the “archeology of the work of art” in Giorgio Agamben. The central theme is the relationship between work, art and historicity starting from the paradigm of the “death of art”. That represents the culminating moment of the metaphysical destiny of art, and therefore also the reference point of a historical archeology which is able to clarify reasons that led to a dissolution of the concrete dimension of the work in contemporary art. On this horizon, the role assumed by the notion of “inoperosity” is specified. It will be shown how, far from celebrating the absence of the work, inoperosity has the task of deactivating the traditional forms of the relationship between work and art. Thus an hypothesis makes its way: that the work of art is nothing less than the manifestation of a power capable of retaining potency in the act of expressing itself. In other words, the work of art is an exemplary case of the self-contemplative state in which the power of human action finds expression.
Consecutio Rerum , 7
In De Martino's work pathological alienation is defined as the modus particular to a sick mind, w... more In De Martino's work pathological alienation is defined as the modus particular to a sick mind, which exposes the human presence to the extreme risk of a crisis that the sane mind is called to avert incessantly. It is within this horizon that culture becomes the instrument of a constant struggle against folly's annihilating interference in history. It is, however, insufficient to elicit the issue of folly without specifying that in De Martino folly evokes the extreme limit of a crisis varyingly articulated on multiple levels. In the rereading of these themes it is useful to be mindful of two fundamental aspects. Firstly, the differing typological forms in which the 'crisis of presence' is declined, with 'history' as their regulatory reference. On the other hand there is the particular role played by art (modern literature especially), as the locus where pathological crisis and cultural-historical crisis are at risk of becoming indiscernible from one another. In light of this, a comparative assessment of the different ways in which the concept of alienation is articulated will be attempted. There will thus be a distinction between α) a positive alienation, which is practiced by magic-religious institutions; β) a negative alienation, in the pathological sense, represented by the experience of folly; γ) a second negative alienation, of a cultural kind, determined by the development of industrial societies.
Segni e Comprensione , 2018
The article focuses the function of the «sensibility» in what is named by Ernesto De Martino the ... more The article focuses the function of the «sensibility» in what is named by Ernesto De Martino the soteriological drama of «presence». In De Martino's early studies on religion, the sacred is qualified as a «technique of the presence towards herself». In this framework, the primacy accorded to technical aspects of the sacred compared to the doctrinal ones highlights the troubled «human genesis» characterizing and giving impetus to the real religious life. Therefore, religious experience represents a protective instrument that operates through the mythical-ritual symbolism. Our hypothesis is that the protective strategy of religious experience finds its main involvement center in the body. For this reason, religion is analyzed here as a technique of the sensibility and the theme of presence is understood in its particular "aesthetic" relevance.
Studi di estetica , 2019
The article aims to reflect on the way in which, according to De Martino, the theme of "the crisi... more The article aims to reflect on the way in which, according to De Martino, the theme of "the crisis of the presence" reaches its highest degree in the bourgeois civilization, whose aspects of decay have been witnessed by some artistic expressions, especially by literature. Thus, two hypotheses will emerge: the first one is that De Martino ascribes an "anthropological exemplarity" to the bourgeois apocalypse, in that it reveals what the previous epochs have hidden under the mask (the pia fraus) of magic and religion, that is the possibility of a collapse of the category of "existence", or what De Martino called the "ethos of transcending". The other hypothesis is that, in the light of this paradigmatic aspect the bourgeois crisis has assumed into the history of the West, art counts as a document in revealing the extreme risk the crisis will not be resolved, regenerating itself indefinitely in the absence of an eschaton. In this horizon of analysis, it is specified the philosophical significance attached to the problem of art. In fact, the function of art is here defined in the light of a radical reform of the "transcendental", in which the "supreme principle" of the unity of selfconsciousness is put at the extreme risk of being lost in nothingness.
Lo Sguardo. Rivista di filosofia , 2019
The MuseuM of eThics. collecTive MeMory and The end of arT The essay aims to investigate in an et... more The MuseuM of eThics. collecTive MeMory and The end of arT The essay aims to investigate in an ethical-aesthetic perspective the link between collective memory and the historicity of experience. The hypothesis is that museum represents the essential point of reference for the construction of a new memorial model which breaks the bond of mutual presupposition between identity and memory, to the advantage of a «reflective» type of relationship with tradition, alienating in many respects. The paradigmatic character of art museum will be particularly highlighted. Here the exposition and transmission of ancient artworks are based on the loss of the link with the spiritual life that had generated them. Indeed, this loss presupposes the separation between the work of art and the ethical sphere of which Hegel's Aesthetics offered us a crucial reading key. In this horizon, if the philosopher Ernesto De Martino identified the characteristic sign of the contemporary crisis in the rift between memory, ethics and history, it is through Hegel's analysis of the «past character» of classical art that it is possible to discern the spiritual genesis of this crisis. The extreme outcome of this nihilistic path is represented by the «angel of art», whose gaze-in the image conceived by Giorgio Agamben-points towards the present seeing as the past no longer belongs to him.
Rivista di Estetica. Arte e fine dell’arte. Radici continentali nella filosofia dell’arte di Arthur Danto, 2021
Periphery looks at you with hate. This phrase in red neon struck the visitors of Landscapes, an e... more Periphery looks at you with hate. This phrase in red neon struck the visitors of Landscapes, an exhibition by Domenico Antonio Mancini in the Lia Rumma Gallery in Naples, in 2019. It was not addressed to the public but to the nineteenth-century pictorial views relocated in the last room of the exhibition, as if repainted by the immaterial vandalism of the colored light. The exhibition’s theme was the visibility of contemporary suburban environments, now accessible through Google street view visualizations. Mancini’s non-representational Landscapes are Google addresses, not aesthetically appreciable but pragmatically challenging: the visitor must type on a touch screen to access to the outskirts of Naples, Palermo, Catania, Rome and Milan. The words at the end of the exhibition almost literally replicated a black graffiti drawn on Palazzo Missori in Milan. Are these relocation and remediation just about artification? What happens when, browsing Google street view, I take a close look at that graffiti recalling the political protests during the streets the 1960s? The deictic transitability in space and time of the hypermediated image can activate a fortuitous narrative and an open interpretation by looking back on the present as if it were past. Even a digital landscape is a moral landscape like that of public art for Danto, with a «internal beauty» whose meaning is not already embodied in architectural and artistic media but accessible and shareable through our portable devices.
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Papers by Francesco Lesce
seeing their social awakening as the occasion to reflect on the limits of bourgeois political and cultural hegemony. In fact, these are key aspects to understanding in what sense, for De Martino, the Southern Question is of importance for a critical review of European ethnocentrism. On this
premise, the final part of the essay will discuss the author’s hypothesis of an “ecumenical” perspective in which the popular masses of Europe could act as mediators for a cultural and political project of truly universal interest.
view art is not conceived as a figure of the Geist that historicizes itself. Danto’s
interest is limited to the reflective self-awareness of art, to which the Hegelian
Absolute Spirit acts as a model. Danto’s “non-specialist” approach to Hegel’s
thinking allows him to bring together not the whole system but some specific
theoretical instances on the order of an autonomous discourse. On this ground,
Danto’s confrontation essentially consists of four aspects: the “an-aesthetic” determination of art (self-reflexivity), the placement of art out of any historical-narrative frame (the end of art history), criticism of the speculative philosophy of art
(theory of philosophical “disenfranchisement”), and the recognition of freedom
as a specific character of art in the contemporary era (post-history).
the moral decay of the bourgeois world. In this crisis that does not seem to overcome itself, since it is lacking in its eschaton, De Martino sees the signs that Europe betrays the founding value of its the humanistic tradition, namely the historical reason, so dangerously embracing
the «end of history» idea.
seeing their social awakening as the occasion to reflect on the limits of bourgeois political and cultural hegemony. In fact, these are key aspects to understanding in what sense, for De Martino, the Southern Question is of importance for a critical review of European ethnocentrism. On this
premise, the final part of the essay will discuss the author’s hypothesis of an “ecumenical” perspective in which the popular masses of Europe could act as mediators for a cultural and political project of truly universal interest.
view art is not conceived as a figure of the Geist that historicizes itself. Danto’s
interest is limited to the reflective self-awareness of art, to which the Hegelian
Absolute Spirit acts as a model. Danto’s “non-specialist” approach to Hegel’s
thinking allows him to bring together not the whole system but some specific
theoretical instances on the order of an autonomous discourse. On this ground,
Danto’s confrontation essentially consists of four aspects: the “an-aesthetic” determination of art (self-reflexivity), the placement of art out of any historical-narrative frame (the end of art history), criticism of the speculative philosophy of art
(theory of philosophical “disenfranchisement”), and the recognition of freedom
as a specific character of art in the contemporary era (post-history).
the moral decay of the bourgeois world. In this crisis that does not seem to overcome itself, since it is lacking in its eschaton, De Martino sees the signs that Europe betrays the founding value of its the humanistic tradition, namely the historical reason, so dangerously embracing
the «end of history» idea.