Ritmi della disseminazione

Abstract

Since its origins, philosophical thought has dealt with the question of rhythm. Emile Benveniste, in an important article from 1951, reconstructed the semantic and philosophical genealogy of the term “rhythm” and noted how, starting with Plato, the term was ontologised and identified with “metre”. The term “rhythm” has thus lost its character of incommensurability and irregularity and has mainly been used in the field of music or poetry. In contemporary times, along with attempts still bound to a “metaphysical” conception of rhythm (as, for example, in Bergson), hypotheses have been formulated that have tried to recover the original lost meaning. Among those who have attempted such a recovery is to be counted, along with philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze or Henri Maldiney, Jacques Derrida, who has made “rhythm” one of the key terms (along with “dissemination”) of his philosophical trajectory and has taken it on as one of the key terms for understanding what is generically called “deconstruction”.