Domenico Cortese
Domenico Cortese, PhD in Filosofia all'Università di Dundee
I campi d’interesse di Domenico Cortese sono filosofia contemporanea, etica applicata, neo-pragmatismo, decostruzionismo e, soprattutto, etica dell’economia. E’ autore di diversi papers accademici e presentazioni in conferenze accademiche, ad esempio “The dominion of means over ends. Modern bank credit and Max Weber’s irrational rationalization“, in The Journal of Philosophical Economics (2017); Filosofie del ‘più Europa’: Sovranismo di Coscienza e Sovranismo Scientifico, in Giornale Critico di Storia delle Idee (2016); “Self-Consciousness and the Financial System. The Concept of Credit in the Perspective of the Hegelian Dialectic”, all’Hegel Congress 2018, tenuto alla University of Tampere.
Si è laureato a pieni voti in Filosofia e Scienze Umane all’Università della Calabria con una tesi intitolata L’Efficacia dell’Indecidibile. Riflessioni sull’Etica e Jacques Derrida.
Ha conseguito la laurea magistrale in Scienze Filosofiche con lode sempre all’Unical con una tesi intitolata L’Esperienza Incoerente. Fenomenologia e Filosofie dell’Autenticità tra Heidegger e Derrida. La sua tesi di Dottorato si intitola Authorities and Naturalness beyond Neo-Pragmatism and De-Constructionism. Optimization of Economic Distribution and Well-Being as going beyond Dialectical Failures. Ha tenuto diverse lezioni frontali alla University of Dundee e all’Università della Calabria, come ospite all’interno di corse magistrali di filosofia.
Presidente della’associazione culturale Calabria Sociale, ha promosso tramite essa diverse battaglie di portata regionale come, ad esempio, la richiesta di ricalcolo del Fondo di Solidarietà Comunale – al di sotto dei limiti imposti dalla Costituzione e dalla Legge 42/2009 – da parte degli enti locali calabresi; l’istituzione di regolamenti per il bilancio partecipato; l’istituzione di aree ecologiche e altri strumenti per una raccolta differenziata efficiente; azioni di volontariato pratico.
E’ stato giornalista per la Gazzetta del Sud, lavorando come corrispondente dalla zona di Tropea e dintorni. Scrive per LaPiazzadiTropea.it. Dal 2019 è militante attivo del Partito Comunista per la federazione di Catanzaro e Vibo Valentia.
Administrator in credit intermediation: owner of Diamoci Credito, started in 2019.
Hotel director (B&B Vanity Hotel, Tropea. Il Girasole, Tropea), 2017.
LANGUAGE COMPETENCE
Ielts certification: B2; Estimated Proficiency after PhD experience: C1.
Blogger accademico: http://www.filosofiadeldebito.it/. Academic blog about recent news, politics, economics. Filosofia del debito: Economia come analisi del potere di chi non si vede.
https://www.facebook.com/filosofiadeldebito/.
Phone: +393453052459; +447827548841
Address: Dundee , Ellen Street, 3, DD1 2QQ, Angus, Uk; Tropea (vv), via degli orti, 12, 89861, Italy
I campi d’interesse di Domenico Cortese sono filosofia contemporanea, etica applicata, neo-pragmatismo, decostruzionismo e, soprattutto, etica dell’economia. E’ autore di diversi papers accademici e presentazioni in conferenze accademiche, ad esempio “The dominion of means over ends. Modern bank credit and Max Weber’s irrational rationalization“, in The Journal of Philosophical Economics (2017); Filosofie del ‘più Europa’: Sovranismo di Coscienza e Sovranismo Scientifico, in Giornale Critico di Storia delle Idee (2016); “Self-Consciousness and the Financial System. The Concept of Credit in the Perspective of the Hegelian Dialectic”, all’Hegel Congress 2018, tenuto alla University of Tampere.
Si è laureato a pieni voti in Filosofia e Scienze Umane all’Università della Calabria con una tesi intitolata L’Efficacia dell’Indecidibile. Riflessioni sull’Etica e Jacques Derrida.
Ha conseguito la laurea magistrale in Scienze Filosofiche con lode sempre all’Unical con una tesi intitolata L’Esperienza Incoerente. Fenomenologia e Filosofie dell’Autenticità tra Heidegger e Derrida. La sua tesi di Dottorato si intitola Authorities and Naturalness beyond Neo-Pragmatism and De-Constructionism. Optimization of Economic Distribution and Well-Being as going beyond Dialectical Failures. Ha tenuto diverse lezioni frontali alla University of Dundee e all’Università della Calabria, come ospite all’interno di corse magistrali di filosofia.
Presidente della’associazione culturale Calabria Sociale, ha promosso tramite essa diverse battaglie di portata regionale come, ad esempio, la richiesta di ricalcolo del Fondo di Solidarietà Comunale – al di sotto dei limiti imposti dalla Costituzione e dalla Legge 42/2009 – da parte degli enti locali calabresi; l’istituzione di regolamenti per il bilancio partecipato; l’istituzione di aree ecologiche e altri strumenti per una raccolta differenziata efficiente; azioni di volontariato pratico.
E’ stato giornalista per la Gazzetta del Sud, lavorando come corrispondente dalla zona di Tropea e dintorni. Scrive per LaPiazzadiTropea.it. Dal 2019 è militante attivo del Partito Comunista per la federazione di Catanzaro e Vibo Valentia.
Administrator in credit intermediation: owner of Diamoci Credito, started in 2019.
Hotel director (B&B Vanity Hotel, Tropea. Il Girasole, Tropea), 2017.
LANGUAGE COMPETENCE
Ielts certification: B2; Estimated Proficiency after PhD experience: C1.
Blogger accademico: http://www.filosofiadeldebito.it/. Academic blog about recent news, politics, economics. Filosofia del debito: Economia come analisi del potere di chi non si vede.
https://www.facebook.com/filosofiadeldebito/.
Phone: +393453052459; +447827548841
Address: Dundee , Ellen Street, 3, DD1 2QQ, Angus, Uk; Tropea (vv), via degli orti, 12, 89861, Italy
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Such a rationalization would bring a lack of reflection on the existential significance of certain technical means, which are confused with a self-referential source of progress and with the value-in-itself of a social context. A “rational” consciousness must realize a rigorous analysis of what original meaning and ultimate scope certain instruments – such as credit – have for the necessities expressed by human will, for «the pursuing of an end defined by ultimate values or life-meanings through a free articulation of an adequate means». Otherwise, there may be only a passive acceptation of some of the current characters of this means; characters which are often a result of historical contingencies which make them no longer necessary for the “real” end of the means. The typical rationalization of the modern age becomes “irrational” in the moment in which it neglects the ultimate, “human” goal of such techniques.
What can be considered, then, to be the “original meaning and ultimate end” of credit, the end which is as consistent as possible with “the necessities expressed by human will”?
The instrument of credit seems to be justified by the fact that within a market economy not everybody immediately possesses the adequate means to set up a new activity or to improve an enterprise to respond to the contingent variation of demand. Credit can be defined as an implicit agreement between a future producer and the community she is part of, whereby this latter – by means of the figure who materially provides the service – grants in advance to the former a part of the reward she is going to obtain from the community itself for her products. Conceived in this way, the function of credit is that of a coordination between the “bargaining wills” of different individuals of a society who aim at obtaining the highest benefit by means of the utility of their products and of the products of their peers. A coordination which is necessary in order to maximize this reciprocal usefulness, given the temporal discrepancies which can physiologically occur between some agents’ capacity to produce and their needs of resources from others in order to live and commit themselves to such a production.
We can notice, then, that our epoch has favored the elevation of contingent and historically determined characters of credit issuing to ultimate ends and values, because of reasons which will not be faced here. This situation makes the process assume a logic which is substantially different from the one acknowledged above as the social scope of credit for human will.
First of all, one has to deal with the inadequacy of the monetary structure of banking. Even though commercial banks can grant loans by electronically crediting the bank account of their customers with a certain deposit without practical limits, they need central bank money in order to settle every transfer a customer requires them to carry out. This money has a cost and this gives rise to several issues.
For instance, at a certain juncture a bank may transfer to other banks a larger quantity of central bank money than the quantity it obtains from the rest of the banking circuit or by issuing shares. Such a bank is therefore forced to borrow a further amount to make new loans, altering either the convenience of new lending or the interest rates it charges – which would reduce people’s desire to borrow.
Also, because of non-performing loans or financial gambling losses, a commercial bank may lose central bank money, causing the same problems in the convenience of new lending as just described, because it needs to retain liquidity to make up for losses and fulfill due payments soon. It is because of such a private risk that commercial banks may become structurally risk-averse, meaning that in order to safeguard their private business they tend to avoid financing small entrepreneurs and innovations which are quite difficult to assess, despite the fact that they may give a great contribution to the technological and social advancement of a community.
The consequence of this structure is that ultimate values and scopes of the concept of credit do not coincide with the maximization and economic reciprocity but, in the first place, with the assessment of a convenience or risk which are distinctly private. This represents a scenario which is different from an assessment of risks and benefits considered in a collective sense, which would be consistent with the function of credit as a social investment.
An individual lender who assesses her personal risk, for example, can be indifferent to the possible technical advance which an investment on a start-up may bring to the entire society and very concerned about a possible loss of sixty-thousands euros. A calculus made by a collective institution of credit will be different.
In the second place, because of the described structure, credit granting can be read as dependent on the availability or scarcity – within a circumscribed economic web – of a specific credit “raw material” which has a cost: central bank’s liquidity.
As a matter of fact, liquidity availability in the system described is above all in function of the availability of liquidity of depositors, shareholders and financial investors of a determined commercial bank, as well as being in function of its debtors’ capacity to pay back. These agents’ willingness to invest their liquidity depends on their expectations about bankers’ ability to realize good investments, about the capacity to pay their loans back by previous debtors of the bank and, in general, about the income condition of the community where previous and potential debtors live: all elements which can be poor after a recession, favoring a pro-cyclical evolution. It is clear that, in this state of affairs, a credit institution and its capacity to grant loans cannot be considered in function of the creation of reciprocal bargaining power and economic benefit among individuals. It is, rather, in function of momentary expectations about the current level of reciprocity and expected reciprocal enrichment proper of a determined economic web, which is what is in fact reflected by the current quantity of central bank’s money in circulation.
In the structure of credit granting outlined above, therefore, availability of credit is in function of a private assessment of the risk-benefit ratio. It can be illustrated as the consequence of the following two value-axioms. The first is the privilege, as credit issuers, of private actors with private commercial goals and necessities. The second is connected with the necessity of central bank liquidity institutionalized as a kind of “credit raw material”. To use the lexicon which Weber uses in his essay The Meaning of “Ethical Neutrality”, these value-axioms are incompatible with the first value-axiom I have recalled – the one consistent with the ultimate scope of credit - above all because of the result of their practical consequences. Hence, it may be concluded that there is an inappropriate confusion between means and ultimate value-axioms and that we have the necessity to rearrange these means in order to put them univocally in function of established value-rational conclusions.
Talks by Domenico Cortese
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Thesis Chapters by Domenico Cortese
Book Reviews by Domenico Cortese
Such a rationalization would bring a lack of reflection on the existential significance of certain technical means, which are confused with a self-referential source of progress and with the value-in-itself of a social context. A “rational” consciousness must realize a rigorous analysis of what original meaning and ultimate scope certain instruments – such as credit – have for the necessities expressed by human will, for «the pursuing of an end defined by ultimate values or life-meanings through a free articulation of an adequate means». Otherwise, there may be only a passive acceptation of some of the current characters of this means; characters which are often a result of historical contingencies which make them no longer necessary for the “real” end of the means. The typical rationalization of the modern age becomes “irrational” in the moment in which it neglects the ultimate, “human” goal of such techniques.
What can be considered, then, to be the “original meaning and ultimate end” of credit, the end which is as consistent as possible with “the necessities expressed by human will”?
The instrument of credit seems to be justified by the fact that within a market economy not everybody immediately possesses the adequate means to set up a new activity or to improve an enterprise to respond to the contingent variation of demand. Credit can be defined as an implicit agreement between a future producer and the community she is part of, whereby this latter – by means of the figure who materially provides the service – grants in advance to the former a part of the reward she is going to obtain from the community itself for her products. Conceived in this way, the function of credit is that of a coordination between the “bargaining wills” of different individuals of a society who aim at obtaining the highest benefit by means of the utility of their products and of the products of their peers. A coordination which is necessary in order to maximize this reciprocal usefulness, given the temporal discrepancies which can physiologically occur between some agents’ capacity to produce and their needs of resources from others in order to live and commit themselves to such a production.
We can notice, then, that our epoch has favored the elevation of contingent and historically determined characters of credit issuing to ultimate ends and values, because of reasons which will not be faced here. This situation makes the process assume a logic which is substantially different from the one acknowledged above as the social scope of credit for human will.
First of all, one has to deal with the inadequacy of the monetary structure of banking. Even though commercial banks can grant loans by electronically crediting the bank account of their customers with a certain deposit without practical limits, they need central bank money in order to settle every transfer a customer requires them to carry out. This money has a cost and this gives rise to several issues.
For instance, at a certain juncture a bank may transfer to other banks a larger quantity of central bank money than the quantity it obtains from the rest of the banking circuit or by issuing shares. Such a bank is therefore forced to borrow a further amount to make new loans, altering either the convenience of new lending or the interest rates it charges – which would reduce people’s desire to borrow.
Also, because of non-performing loans or financial gambling losses, a commercial bank may lose central bank money, causing the same problems in the convenience of new lending as just described, because it needs to retain liquidity to make up for losses and fulfill due payments soon. It is because of such a private risk that commercial banks may become structurally risk-averse, meaning that in order to safeguard their private business they tend to avoid financing small entrepreneurs and innovations which are quite difficult to assess, despite the fact that they may give a great contribution to the technological and social advancement of a community.
The consequence of this structure is that ultimate values and scopes of the concept of credit do not coincide with the maximization and economic reciprocity but, in the first place, with the assessment of a convenience or risk which are distinctly private. This represents a scenario which is different from an assessment of risks and benefits considered in a collective sense, which would be consistent with the function of credit as a social investment.
An individual lender who assesses her personal risk, for example, can be indifferent to the possible technical advance which an investment on a start-up may bring to the entire society and very concerned about a possible loss of sixty-thousands euros. A calculus made by a collective institution of credit will be different.
In the second place, because of the described structure, credit granting can be read as dependent on the availability or scarcity – within a circumscribed economic web – of a specific credit “raw material” which has a cost: central bank’s liquidity.
As a matter of fact, liquidity availability in the system described is above all in function of the availability of liquidity of depositors, shareholders and financial investors of a determined commercial bank, as well as being in function of its debtors’ capacity to pay back. These agents’ willingness to invest their liquidity depends on their expectations about bankers’ ability to realize good investments, about the capacity to pay their loans back by previous debtors of the bank and, in general, about the income condition of the community where previous and potential debtors live: all elements which can be poor after a recession, favoring a pro-cyclical evolution. It is clear that, in this state of affairs, a credit institution and its capacity to grant loans cannot be considered in function of the creation of reciprocal bargaining power and economic benefit among individuals. It is, rather, in function of momentary expectations about the current level of reciprocity and expected reciprocal enrichment proper of a determined economic web, which is what is in fact reflected by the current quantity of central bank’s money in circulation.
In the structure of credit granting outlined above, therefore, availability of credit is in function of a private assessment of the risk-benefit ratio. It can be illustrated as the consequence of the following two value-axioms. The first is the privilege, as credit issuers, of private actors with private commercial goals and necessities. The second is connected with the necessity of central bank liquidity institutionalized as a kind of “credit raw material”. To use the lexicon which Weber uses in his essay The Meaning of “Ethical Neutrality”, these value-axioms are incompatible with the first value-axiom I have recalled – the one consistent with the ultimate scope of credit - above all because of the result of their practical consequences. Hence, it may be concluded that there is an inappropriate confusion between means and ultimate value-axioms and that we have the necessity to rearrange these means in order to put them univocally in function of established value-rational conclusions.