About the Journal

 

Manifesto

 

Spaziofilosofico is a space of ideas, a public space in the service of the understanding of things in the “now of knowability”.

First of all, it is a space of ideas: it is their space. We who in this space spend time and engage in the labor of thinking are their guests, and we behave accordingly, with manners and education.

Spaziofilosofico is also a public space. Where one thematizes and develops questions, a public space is generated, because a theme is such insofar as it is offered to a potentially universal questioning capable of letting an understanding of things emerge. The unfolding of the idea of a thing escapes the danger of arbitrariness insofar as what is enabled to come to expression is the essence of the thing, the thing itself. In this sense, it is not an external attribution of meaning to an inert object of inquiry; rather, it is a consenting to, a seconding the thing.

In the Now of Knowability. This expression by Walter Benjamin (Jetzt der Erkennbarkeit) refers to the need for the “presence of mind” (Geistesgegenwart), through which we can recognize or decipher what is going on in our present, so that – as far as possible – the decisive events of life and history do not pass misunderstood over our heads, while we are distracted and turned elsewhere. The essays respond in a nick of time, as it were, to the “guest events,” to the irruptions and interruptions of reality that demand an assumption of responsibility and a contribution in thought. They intervene in the debate with the left hand; still according to an indication by Benjamin, this is the hand that – despite or precisely because of its unpreparedness that forces it to improvise – is capable of striking the decisive blows. Even though philosophy privileges the very long times of meditation, nevertheless it remains a sibling to urgency, and therefore it is pressed never to forget such kinship.

Spaziofilosofico has selected four sides of the thing itself: theoretical, political, practical, and the history of ideas. For each of these sides, every issue of the journal unfolds a theme, a concept under shock, which is to be re-thought. The very tight connection of theory and practice is in response to the idea that the most speculative is the most concrete, and that it is time that philosophy returns to its inclination as civic commitment without thereby losing any of its purity.

Spaziofilosofico understands Practices as the site that hosts those who (whether once in life or more frequently) practice the labor of the concept; those who identify categories requiring new attention, transform them into themes, open up their boundaries again and attempt new unfolding, regardless of the culture of belonging (humanistic or scientific, philosophical or non-philosophical). It understands Politics as the site of the direct irruption of reality onto the scene of philosophical thinking; the site of debate on a possible future, proposals for reforms and changes. It understands Theory as the focusing of theoretical genomes capable of enlightening reality, and provide a comprehensive interpretation based on the rigor and precision with which they are identified. It understands Studies as contributions to a revisiting of the tradition so as to bring out its vitality and applicability, in close dialogue with the most recent critical literature.

Spaziofilosofico offers unpublished contributions of limited length (which one can read as printouts but also on the computer screen) that are made of concluded and articulate thoughts, thoughts that are intense and with a minimal amount of necessary notes.

Spaziofilosofico hosts contributions written in Italian and in the main European languages. It thus gives its small contribution to the construction of a common European space, in which all voices may find themselves at home and in which the central role recognized to the English language does not imply the saturation of other linguistic spaces.

It does not situate itself within a theoretical framework that is clearly identifiable academically: there is space within its space.