Prof. Dr. Gaetano Chiurazzi, research member of the International Center of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has recently published Dynamis. Ontología de lo inconmensurable (2022, Sevilla: Fénix). In this book Prof. Chiurazzi argues that the roots of the dynamical ontology outlined in Plato’s late dialogues, culminating in the definition of Being as dynamis in the Sophist, can be traced back to the mathematical debate on incommensurable quantities, which are presented as a solution to the problem of non-being. This implies the passage to a form of non-measuring, but mediating rationality, which will end up finding its maximum expression in Kantian transcendentalism and in the various philosophies derived from it, from Hegelianism to the hermeneutics of the nineteenth century. Thus, the demonstration of the incommensurability of the diagonal is not only the turning point towards an ontology of dynamis, but the fundamental presupposition of an intrinsically differential ontology and of a truly transformative and emancipatory conception of reason. Incommensurability represents, in fact, the concept of an exteriority or surplus irreducible to a given domain and, therefore, the foundation of what is designated as a “microphysics of freedom”.

 

The President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, has awarded a presidential recognition to Prof. Dr. Adriano Fabris, co-director and research member of the International Center of Study on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), as an exaltation for his leadership of the Italian Society of Moral Philosophy (2019-2022). This medal is also a recognition of the work done by the Italian Society for Moral Philosophy in recent years and its promotion of the presence of moral philosophy in the public debate through numerous academic activities such as conferences, congresses, specialized blogs, the foundation of the journal Filosofia morale etc.

 

Prof. Dr. Eric Pommier, research fellow at the International Center of Study on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has published La condition sensible. Chair, Événement, Éros (Hermann, Paris, 2022). In this book, Prof. Pommier takes as a starting point the role of the body as the center of sensitive perception, for the body is not only in the world, but also allows man to unfold in the perceived world. Consequently, the body acquires a double dimension of belonging and openness. This presupposes a first sensible gift by which the body is, on the one hand, what is-there in the world and, on the other hand, what constitutes the world.

In describing the phenomenon of perception, phenomenology is compelled to trace back from the world in which we find ourselves to the source of appearances, to the intentional consciousness that animates a pure sensible matter. This leads to a series of questions that the author addresses through a dialogue with the contemporary phenomenological tradition: how to account for the gift of this sensible matter? Should we settle for a transcendental conception of the flesh to account for this pure feeling? Or should we and can we go further back, towards an event thanks to which there is sensibility? Would the function of the flesh then be to ensure the passage between this first gift of the sensible and the world as we constitute it? Would the exploration of the erotic body be able to reconcile the flesh with itself and thus give us the secret of our sensible condition?

 

Prof. Dr. Žarko Paić, research fellow at the International Center for the Study of Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has recently published the book Art and the Technosphere: The Platforms of Strings (2022) by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. In this book, Prof. Dr. Žarko Paić, starting from the analysis of the relationship between aesthetics and contemporary art, investigates hermeneutics, phenomenology and semiotics with regard to the notion of image and its new status in avant-garde art, which turned towards the analysis of posthumanism/transhumanism.

Also, the author points out the importance of starting to think about the aesthetic construction of worlds, instead of representing the idea in its eternity, and explains that contemporary art from avant-garde procedures of shock, provocation and experimentation enters the field of metatheory of visualization of the event. Prof. Dr. Paić indicates that the problem is no longer to inquire into “what” art is, but “how” the difference between the aesthetic object and artificial life is to be determined, insofar as the event of creation and enjoyment in a digital simulation constitutes a historical development of art.

 

Prof. Dr. Gaetano Chiurazzi, research member of the International Center of Study on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has recently published the book Compreensão, História, Contingência. Ensaios sobre Heidegger e a hermeneutica (2022), at Paco editorial (Brazil), which brings a series of essays on Heidegger’s philosophy and hermeneutics (2022). This work addresses issues such as the problem of realism and justice, the pragmatic dimension of existence, alterity, among others, which are grouped around three fundamental concepts that mark the historical and philosophical development of hermeneutics: understanding, history and contingency.

Prof. Dr. Chiurazzi also analyzes the true philosophical content of hermeneutics, placing this question under the approach of the three central concepts (understanding, history and contingency) and considering Heidegger’s philosophy in dialogue with other philosophers (Anaximander, Leibniz, Nietzsche, Husserl, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Gadamer).

 

Prof. Dr. Eric Pommier, a research member of the International Center for the Study of Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has recently published the book La démocratie environnementale. Préserver notre part de nature (2022). In this book, Prof. Dr. Pommier argues the need to defend a principle of responsibility towards future generations, life, and the Earth, in the face of the systemic threats of our time. However, it is not evident that a political regime is capable of embodying such an ethical principle.

Some of the questions raised by the author in this work are: How can we represent the interests of future generations if they have not yet been born, how to defend the interests of the living and the Earth since they are not subjects of law, what to think of a regime that claims to defend such interests to the detriment of the rights of classical subjects, i.e. contemporary men? Far from concluding that this new ethical requirement is only an unattainable utopia, Prof. Dr. Éric Pommier proposes in this book the ways of reconciliation through the concept of environmental democracy.

 

Prof. Adriano Fabris (Università di Pisa, Italy) and Prof. Alfredo Rocha de la Torre (Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia), directors of the International Center for the Study of Contemporary Nihilism of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism, deeply regret the death of our dear friend Prof. Dr. Jacinto Rivera (University of Pisa, Italy). Dr. Jacinto Rivera de Rosales, research member of CeNic. The Prof. Rivera de Rosales was translator into Spanish of works by Kant, Fichte and Schelling, President of the International Fichtean Society and of the Society of Kantian Studies in Spanish Language. en Lengua Española (Society of Kantian Studies in Spanish Language). Member of the Editorial Board of the journal Daimon, of the Fichte-Studien and the Fichte-Studien and of the Advisory Board of several international journals. Dean at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) in Madrid (Spain). Tireless author of philosophical texts in Spanish, German, Italian, English, French, but above all, a beautiful beautiful human being who radiated to everyone who had the privilege of enjoying his smile, the light of his spontaneous joy. the light of his spontaneous joy. Let one of his poems serve as an expression of our sense of meaning ‘Farewell dear friend’: “Deshecha la palabra y la figura / queda sólo el gesto del silencio. / Mas siempre quedará, aun en cenizas, / todo el amor y el mar que siempre llevó”.

 

Prof. Dr. Žarko Paić, research fellow at the International Center of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has published Aesthetics and the Iconoclasm of Contemporary Art: Pictures Without a World by the highly regarded publishing house Springer. As stated in the presentation, this book has as its main themes understanding aesthetic, contemporary art, and the end of the avant-garde not from the traditional viewpoint of the metaphysics of the beautiful and the sublime, but rather thru close relation to the techno-genesis of virtual worlds. On the other hand, Professor Paić argues in this writing that the iconoclasm of contemporary art has severe consequences for art itself.

 

Prof. Dr. Josep María Esquirol Calaf, research member of the International Center for the Study of Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has published the book Human, more human: an anthropology of the infinite wound in the publishing house Acantilado. As stated in the publisher’s presentation, this is a work in which the simple everyday questions about the other (how are you?, what’s wrong with you?) infallibly approach the depths of the soul; a work that seeks to go deeper and deeper into the human. Other of his writings such as La penúltima bondad, La resistencia íntima and Uno mismo y los otros, for example, form a whole of deep human warmth.