Recently in the English speaking world, the writings of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben are starting to become more popular. While Agamben’s works are many and noteworthy, I’d like to draw your attention to a younger Italian philosopher who is not yet as popular as Agamben, but is certainly worth engaging.

Moreno Montanari is called a philosophical counsellor of sorts. He is a philosopher who argues that if philosophy has no bearing on everyday life, then it is dead. He has written several books and his latest one is reviewed in today’s edition of la Repubblica. I’ve scribbled out a rough translation that will hopefully give you a sense of Montanari’s work.

His latest book is called, Hadot e Foucault nello specchio dei greci (Mimesis, 17 euro)

See also Il Tao di Nietzsche (Mimesis, 16 euro) and my personal favourite, La filosofia come cura: percorsi di autenticità (Unicopli, 12 euro)

Philosophy Practised
By Dario Olivero

Perhaps it’s not like they told us. Perhaps we’re wrong and we’ve lost sight of the way home. We’ve taken too lightly the definition that Aristotle talked about: “All the sciences are more useful than philosophy, but none is superior.” Perhaps superior meant infinitely more useful rather than necessary, the point at which all the other sciences would not have reason to exist without it. For years, Moreno Montanari tormented himself with this definition which changed his life, this usually happens to those who dare to come into contact with philosophy. And for years he has sought to bring it home.

Imagine that theoretical philosophy, the kind that you learn from your teachers might altogether be another thing. From the water like the first principle of Thales to the obscure fragments of Heraclitus, to the mathematical mysteries of Pythagoras to the refined Platonic metaphysics and Plotinian mysticism, everything that we have learned may not be merely a logical and critical exercise. Instead, it might be more like a manual of spiritual exercises, a handbook to educate mankind to live better, in order to find happiness in himself, to face his journey on this earth with wisdom. Spiritual exercises are a very practical existential training, a re-education that departs from logic, reason, which animates every fibre of the human being. On the other hand, didn’t Seneca face his destiny thanks to Epicurean philosophy? And didn’t Marcus Aurelius anesthetize himself from power thanks to the Stoic doctrine? And what should be said of how Socrates faced his own murder? The logos was the instrument and care, the logos became flesh and the man faced his life in the only way worthy of a philosopher. Which then doesn’t mean anything other than to find one’s own place in a world which many times is simply absurd.

The two theoretical principles of healthy revisionism for the functions of philosophy are Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault, as Montanari’s book explains. They are extremely different, but they are equally tormented by the search for an answer which does not take shortcuts. Both of them came from almost opposite ends to the same conclusion: philosophy without its practical value is dead. And it has started to die when religious truth or certain scientific facts have transformed it into a mere logical instrument, category, set of rules. Heidegger called it the age of technology, the medieval scholastics called it ancilla teologiae, it’s called analytic philosophy in today’s overspecialized academic world. Now many are trying to bring philosophy home and give it back its own dignity once again. They call themselves philosophical counsellors; they believe that we can take care of ourselves by rediscovering the philosophy that is already there in every one of us. It is an enormous task. It is opposed and the effort is perhaps less useful. But, it is nonetheless superior. Montanari is one of them.