Andrea Oppo
Andrea Oppo is Associate Professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Religion at the Pontifical University of Sardinia (Cagliari, Italy). His areas of interests include contemporary Philosophy (esp. phenomenology and existential philosophy), Philosophy of Arts, Philosophy of Religion, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Russian Silver Age (esp. Shestov, Florensky, Berdyaev).
Address: c/o Pontifical Theological University of Sardinia, via Sanjust 13 - 09129 Cagliari (Sardegna), Italy
Address: c/o Pontifical Theological University of Sardinia, via Sanjust 13 - 09129 Cagliari (Sardegna), Italy
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The philosopher and scientist Pavel A. Florensky (1882-1937) has always manifested a great deal of interest in literature and was himself the author of poems and biographical works. Among his literary tastes as well as in his personal formation, however, the novels of Dostoevsky – as he openly declared – “had never found a place.” In spite of all this, numerous quotations from Dostoevsky’s works occur in his philosophical writings and this presence reveals, as if it were in a negative way, a much more relevant meaning than the mere affirmation of his dislike. Dostoevsky seems to represent an “antithesis” to Florensky’s universe of thought, but precisely because of the way that universe is constructed it is a “necessary” antithesis. In this article, which examines the main Dostoevskian occurrences in Florensky’s writings, the ambivalent meaning of this relationship is explored. In many ways, it is a meaning that, extending far beyond a private matter of tastes, tendencies and poetics, finally reveals a universal question: the contradiction itself between the view of the world’s transcendent harmony and the perception of its immanent chaos.
The philosopher and scientist Pavel A. Florensky (1882-1937) has always manifested a great deal of interest in literature and was himself the author of poems and biographical works. Among his literary tastes as well as in his personal formation, however, the novels of Dostoevsky – as he openly declared – “had never found a place.” In spite of all this, numerous quotations from Dostoevsky’s works occur in his philosophical writings and this presence reveals, as if it were in a negative way, a much more relevant meaning than the mere affirmation of his dislike. Dostoevsky seems to represent an “antithesis” to Florensky’s universe of thought, but precisely because of the way that universe is constructed it is a “necessary” antithesis. In this article, which examines the main Dostoevskian occurrences in Florensky’s writings, the ambivalent meaning of this relationship is explored. In many ways, it is a meaning that, extending far beyond a private matter of tastes, tendencies and poetics, finally reveals a universal question: the contradiction itself between the view of the world’s transcendent harmony and the perception of its immanent chaos.
skii’s philosophy and theory of knowledge. He utilises it in many fields and subjects:
mathematics, physics, semiotics, aesthetics, theology, and literature. Florenskii’s uni-
verse is a “discontinuous double” in which an earthly and natural state of things is opposed to an upper-world that is ruled by different geometrical laws and is know-
able only by abstraction. In between there is always a threshold (a symbol, an “icon”)
that connects the two. The general intent of this article is, on the one hand, to give an
indication of the main directions of the concept of discontinuity within Florenskii’s
works and, on the other hand, to highlight its relevance for a “philosophy of culture”
and for a “philosophy of the symbolic forms”, but also – as Florenskii puts it – for a
specific understanding of the “Russian mind”. The article also devotes a section to the
literary aspects of Florenskii’s concept of discontinuity (less explored by Florenskii
scholarship and perhaps by the author himself), which involve among other things a
reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and an original and ambitious attempt of interpreting
physical space in Dante’s Divine Comedy.
del male nei "Saggi di teodicea" di Leibniz e cerca di stabilire che rapporto vi sia tra la tesi classica assunta dall’autore, quella della “privazione dell’essere”, e il sistema dell’Armonia prestabilita che costituisce l’asse portante dell’argomentazione proposta nell’opera. Il risultato di questa analisi sembra essere la scarsa rilevanza della tesi privativa all’interno del sistema leibniziano. Leibniz recupera e integra con opportune distinzioni l’idea agostiniana dell’origine del male come privatio entis in un modo funzionale al suo discorso, ma sempre ponendo l’accento sulla razionalità delle scelte di Dio e sul Suo concorso come “sostanza attiva” in queste scelte – anche quando queste ultime hanno a che fare con la presenza del male nel mondo – piuttosto che sull’analisi della natura del male in sé, come fanno per esempio, seppure in modi molto diversi, Tommaso e Kant.
[This article investigates the metaphysical origin of evil in Leibniz’s "Theodicy" within the relationship between the classical thesis assumed by the author, that of the “privation of being”, and his system of the pre-established Harmony, which represents the backbone for his argument in the work. The result of this analysis points out the scarce relevance of the thesis within the Leibnizian system. Leibniz recovers and integrates with appropriate distinctions the Augustinian idea of the origin of evil as privatio entis in a way that is functional to his theory, albeit always emphasising the rationality of God’s choices and His participation as an “active substance” in these choices – even when the latter have to do with the presence of evil in the world – rather than highlighting the nature of evil itself, as Thomas Aquinas and Kant do, albeit in very different ways.]
(This article explores the controversial relationship Lev Shestov had with the thought of Vladimir Solovyov basing mostly on the main writing that he dedicated to him, i.e. the 1927 article «Speculation and Apocalypse. The Religious Philosophy of Vl. Solovyov». However harshly critical Shestov’s reading of Solovyov was, and considering also the objective difference between the two philosophers who can hardly be compared the one to the other, there is still a margin for a positive confrontation between their respective works. This is given by the larger frame of N. Berdyaev’s concept of «Russian idea», within which their thought can be inscribed in a way that Shestov himself had actually anticipated at the end of his essay on Solovyov. In this respect, as is suggested by an interpretation of the two authors offered by N. Berdyaev and A. Losev, the ultimate meaning of both Solovyov’s and Shestov’s thought would converge in an eschatological view towards the truth of this world as well as in the fundamental mistrust towards the Western epistemic worldview)
Тезисы
Андреа Оппо
"Опрокидывание Натурализма: Эстетический реализм Павла Флоренского"
В чем заключается истинная суть критики, которой Флоренский подвергал западное искусство? Почему, заново трактуя статус образа в двадцатом столетии, он с такой непреклонностью возвращается к богословскому вопросу, уходящему корнями в раннее Средневековье? Касаясь таких тем как «природа и реальность», «истина и иллюзия», «обратная перспектива и линейная перспектива», русский философ не только вновь помещает икону в самую сердцевину современной эстетической мысли, но также предлагает особую, преображенную, и в итоге «реалистическую» концепцию физического мира. В данной статье рассматривается критика Флоренским естественного искусства в свете так называемого «иконического взгляда» и делается попытку более точно определить истинный предмет противопоставления, которое он делает между идеями «натурализма» и «реализма», из которых вторая представляет собой целостный и более аутентичный взгляд на мир. Реализм Флоренского, как показано в статье, представляет собой «теорию двух миров» в пределах парадигмы фундаментальной прерывности реальности. Эти два мира могут быть распознаны и связаны друг с другом только посредством некой третьей части, т.е. абстракции С, хотя и заданной конкретным элементом С, которая в итоге предлагает более широкое символическое познание. Флоренский называет это «конкретной метафизикой».
Starting from a ‘heretic’ conception of imaginary numbers, in a text of 1922 Pavel Florenskij interprets the idea of space in Dante’s Divine Comedy (basing on Hell XXXIV) as conformed to a non-Euclidean and elliptic geometry, according to a Kleinian model. Successively, in the same article, Florenskij merges such a conception of the surface (where Dante and Virgilius move) to a physic model of space and time he draws from Einstein’s theory of relativity. The result is one of the most original and ambitious attempts ever made of reading the Divine Comedy. Its author, Florenskij, was a genial intellectual, capable of joining together in a single analysis subjects like mathematics, physics, literature, philosophy, and theology. This article will investigate Florenskij’s reading of Dante from both a theoretical and a linguistic point of view.
Создается впечатление, что первая книга Льва Шестова Шекспир и его критик Брандес (1898) сокрыла в себе “секрет”, который мог бы послужить объяснением того факта, что почти на протяжении века эта книга оставалась фактически неизвестной. Защищая Шекспира от “неверного” толкования Георга Брандеса, Шестов кажется странно непохожим на человека, который на протяжении всей последующей жизни яростно нападает на любые моралистские проповеди. Почему Шестов изменил свое мнение по поводу этой темы? И какую конкретно точку зрения он защищал в книге Шекспир и его критик Брандес, отвергнув ее позже? Это два важнейших вопроса, затронутые в данной статье, которая исследует самые истоки философии Шестова и предлагает ключ к пониманию того, как русский философ начал свой путь к антирационализму и антиморализму.
ovvero uno dei maggiori artefici della sua diffusione nel mondo anglo-americano. In secondo luogo, si cercherà di ragionare su alcuni motivi dell’insuccesso e dell’inattualità di questa distinzione nell’estetica contemporanea e insieme proporne una più corretta collocazione nel segno di un ideale specificamente romantico, e che solo alla luce dell’identificazione tutta romantica di mito e poesia, riletta oggi in chiave ermeneutica, ha qualcosa da dire alla contemporaneità.
The philosopher and scientist Pavel A. Florensky (1882-1937) has always manifested a great deal of interest in literature and was himself the author of poems and biographical works. Among his literary tastes as well as in his personal formation, however, the novels of Dostoevsky – as he openly declared – “had never found a place.” In spite of all this, numerous quotations from Dostoevsky’s works occur in his philosophical writings and this presence reveals, as if it were in a negative way, a much more relevant meaning than the mere affirmation of his dislike. Dostoevsky seems to represent an “antithesis” to Florensky’s universe of thought, but precisely because of the way that universe is constructed it is a “necessary” antithesis. In this article, which examines the main Dostoevskian occurrences in Florensky’s writings, the ambivalent meaning of this relationship is explored. In many ways, it is a meaning that, extending far beyond a private matter of tastes, tendencies and poetics, finally reveals a universal question: the contradiction itself between the view of the world’s transcendent harmony and the perception of its immanent chaos.
The philosopher and scientist Pavel A. Florensky (1882-1937) has always manifested a great deal of interest in literature and was himself the author of poems and biographical works. Among his literary tastes as well as in his personal formation, however, the novels of Dostoevsky – as he openly declared – “had never found a place.” In spite of all this, numerous quotations from Dostoevsky’s works occur in his philosophical writings and this presence reveals, as if it were in a negative way, a much more relevant meaning than the mere affirmation of his dislike. Dostoevsky seems to represent an “antithesis” to Florensky’s universe of thought, but precisely because of the way that universe is constructed it is a “necessary” antithesis. In this article, which examines the main Dostoevskian occurrences in Florensky’s writings, the ambivalent meaning of this relationship is explored. In many ways, it is a meaning that, extending far beyond a private matter of tastes, tendencies and poetics, finally reveals a universal question: the contradiction itself between the view of the world’s transcendent harmony and the perception of its immanent chaos.
skii’s philosophy and theory of knowledge. He utilises it in many fields and subjects:
mathematics, physics, semiotics, aesthetics, theology, and literature. Florenskii’s uni-
verse is a “discontinuous double” in which an earthly and natural state of things is opposed to an upper-world that is ruled by different geometrical laws and is know-
able only by abstraction. In between there is always a threshold (a symbol, an “icon”)
that connects the two. The general intent of this article is, on the one hand, to give an
indication of the main directions of the concept of discontinuity within Florenskii’s
works and, on the other hand, to highlight its relevance for a “philosophy of culture”
and for a “philosophy of the symbolic forms”, but also – as Florenskii puts it – for a
specific understanding of the “Russian mind”. The article also devotes a section to the
literary aspects of Florenskii’s concept of discontinuity (less explored by Florenskii
scholarship and perhaps by the author himself), which involve among other things a
reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and an original and ambitious attempt of interpreting
physical space in Dante’s Divine Comedy.
del male nei "Saggi di teodicea" di Leibniz e cerca di stabilire che rapporto vi sia tra la tesi classica assunta dall’autore, quella della “privazione dell’essere”, e il sistema dell’Armonia prestabilita che costituisce l’asse portante dell’argomentazione proposta nell’opera. Il risultato di questa analisi sembra essere la scarsa rilevanza della tesi privativa all’interno del sistema leibniziano. Leibniz recupera e integra con opportune distinzioni l’idea agostiniana dell’origine del male come privatio entis in un modo funzionale al suo discorso, ma sempre ponendo l’accento sulla razionalità delle scelte di Dio e sul Suo concorso come “sostanza attiva” in queste scelte – anche quando queste ultime hanno a che fare con la presenza del male nel mondo – piuttosto che sull’analisi della natura del male in sé, come fanno per esempio, seppure in modi molto diversi, Tommaso e Kant.
[This article investigates the metaphysical origin of evil in Leibniz’s "Theodicy" within the relationship between the classical thesis assumed by the author, that of the “privation of being”, and his system of the pre-established Harmony, which represents the backbone for his argument in the work. The result of this analysis points out the scarce relevance of the thesis within the Leibnizian system. Leibniz recovers and integrates with appropriate distinctions the Augustinian idea of the origin of evil as privatio entis in a way that is functional to his theory, albeit always emphasising the rationality of God’s choices and His participation as an “active substance” in these choices – even when the latter have to do with the presence of evil in the world – rather than highlighting the nature of evil itself, as Thomas Aquinas and Kant do, albeit in very different ways.]
(This article explores the controversial relationship Lev Shestov had with the thought of Vladimir Solovyov basing mostly on the main writing that he dedicated to him, i.e. the 1927 article «Speculation and Apocalypse. The Religious Philosophy of Vl. Solovyov». However harshly critical Shestov’s reading of Solovyov was, and considering also the objective difference between the two philosophers who can hardly be compared the one to the other, there is still a margin for a positive confrontation between their respective works. This is given by the larger frame of N. Berdyaev’s concept of «Russian idea», within which their thought can be inscribed in a way that Shestov himself had actually anticipated at the end of his essay on Solovyov. In this respect, as is suggested by an interpretation of the two authors offered by N. Berdyaev and A. Losev, the ultimate meaning of both Solovyov’s and Shestov’s thought would converge in an eschatological view towards the truth of this world as well as in the fundamental mistrust towards the Western epistemic worldview)
Тезисы
Андреа Оппо
"Опрокидывание Натурализма: Эстетический реализм Павла Флоренского"
В чем заключается истинная суть критики, которой Флоренский подвергал западное искусство? Почему, заново трактуя статус образа в двадцатом столетии, он с такой непреклонностью возвращается к богословскому вопросу, уходящему корнями в раннее Средневековье? Касаясь таких тем как «природа и реальность», «истина и иллюзия», «обратная перспектива и линейная перспектива», русский философ не только вновь помещает икону в самую сердцевину современной эстетической мысли, но также предлагает особую, преображенную, и в итоге «реалистическую» концепцию физического мира. В данной статье рассматривается критика Флоренским естественного искусства в свете так называемого «иконического взгляда» и делается попытку более точно определить истинный предмет противопоставления, которое он делает между идеями «натурализма» и «реализма», из которых вторая представляет собой целостный и более аутентичный взгляд на мир. Реализм Флоренского, как показано в статье, представляет собой «теорию двух миров» в пределах парадигмы фундаментальной прерывности реальности. Эти два мира могут быть распознаны и связаны друг с другом только посредством некой третьей части, т.е. абстракции С, хотя и заданной конкретным элементом С, которая в итоге предлагает более широкое символическое познание. Флоренский называет это «конкретной метафизикой».
Starting from a ‘heretic’ conception of imaginary numbers, in a text of 1922 Pavel Florenskij interprets the idea of space in Dante’s Divine Comedy (basing on Hell XXXIV) as conformed to a non-Euclidean and elliptic geometry, according to a Kleinian model. Successively, in the same article, Florenskij merges such a conception of the surface (where Dante and Virgilius move) to a physic model of space and time he draws from Einstein’s theory of relativity. The result is one of the most original and ambitious attempts ever made of reading the Divine Comedy. Its author, Florenskij, was a genial intellectual, capable of joining together in a single analysis subjects like mathematics, physics, literature, philosophy, and theology. This article will investigate Florenskij’s reading of Dante from both a theoretical and a linguistic point of view.
Создается впечатление, что первая книга Льва Шестова Шекспир и его критик Брандес (1898) сокрыла в себе “секрет”, который мог бы послужить объяснением того факта, что почти на протяжении века эта книга оставалась фактически неизвестной. Защищая Шекспира от “неверного” толкования Георга Брандеса, Шестов кажется странно непохожим на человека, который на протяжении всей последующей жизни яростно нападает на любые моралистские проповеди. Почему Шестов изменил свое мнение по поводу этой темы? И какую конкретно точку зрения он защищал в книге Шекспир и его критик Брандес, отвергнув ее позже? Это два важнейших вопроса, затронутые в данной статье, которая исследует самые истоки философии Шестова и предлагает ключ к пониманию того, как русский философ начал свой путь к антирационализму и антиморализму.
ovvero uno dei maggiori artefici della sua diffusione nel mondo anglo-americano. In secondo luogo, si cercherà di ragionare su alcuni motivi dell’insuccesso e dell’inattualità di questa distinzione nell’estetica contemporanea e insieme proporne una più corretta collocazione nel segno di un ideale specificamente romantico, e che solo alla luce dell’identificazione tutta romantica di mito e poesia, riletta oggi in chiave ermeneutica, ha qualcosa da dire alla contemporaneità.
Within the immense field of art, I am going to go over a specific experience I would define as distinctively Occidental, i.e. the concept of perspective.
In fact, perspective might be well considered, as someone also argued (and I am thinking of Ernst Cassirer and, later, Erwin Panofsky, and, again, a great German art historian such as Hans Belting), the “symbolic form” par excellence of Western modernity – a form that significantly influenced the western theory of vision, its inner imagery, and eventually humankind itself (when it comes to planning, imagining the “future to come”, the life we want to have…). The way this world must be. That’s what a philosophical anthropology is in my view: the way in which humans think this world should be. In all that, perspective appears as a crucial junction for the Western world and, consequently, for all humanity. This is exactly what I am trying to investigate in this presentation: on the one hand, perspective as an essentially symbolic form that has become almost an obsession for all Western culture. On the other hand, I would like to explore other ways – ways that refused that obsession and tried to develop “other kinds of perspectives”. In this case, I am going to compare an hypothetical Russian view on the world – as I drew it from my studies on philosophy and arts – with the Western one.
The first part of this presentation is devoted to an analysis of the Western idea of perspective whereas the second part will introduce a possibly Russian way. Hence, the subtitle of this presentation: “Philosophies of Perspective”.
"Theologi-ca News: notiziario della Pontificia Facoltà Teologica della Sardegna", anno XXXII (2015), n. 59, giugno, pp. 4-5;
http://www.pfts.it/images/documenti_pdf/Notiziario/2015_2_PFTS_Notiziario.pdf
La conferenza si è tenuta il 13 marzo 2015 a Cagliari. Nel solco illustre della tradizione di Lectura Dantis, iniziata da Boccaccio, si passano in rassegna i luoghi della Commedia in cui è citata la Sardigna (Inf. XXII 89) o l’isola d’i Sardi (Inf. XXVI 104) secondo il viaggio di Ulisse; oltre a personaggi come Michele Zanche (Inf. XXII 87 ss.). Il periodo in cui Dante fu a contatto con Pisa dovette essere anche quello per una conoscenza, sebbene de relato, dell’isola allora sotto l’influenza della città toscana nei secoli XII e XIII. Tuttavia la resa favolosa di un’isola impervia e malarica permane in altri accenni del sacrato poema, fino a farne un luogo remoto per eccellenza, al modo di Boccaccio: «dee egli essere più là che Abruzzi» (Decameron, VIII 3).
Il foglio con le citazioni e le diapositive utilizzate durante la conferenza sono a: http://www.pfts.it/index.php/notizie/129-la-divina-commedia-letta-in-sardegna.
Sono queste alcune delle domande affrontate in questo volume scritto da Andrea Oppo, slavista e docente di Estetica alla Pontificia Facoltà Teologica della Sardegna.
Se una questione filosofica esiste a proposito dell’icona, questa è da ricercarsi in una messa in dubbio radicale delle idee di spazio e di tempo presenti nel naturalismo occidentale. Quando si parla di “realtà” o di “verità” di una rappresentazione, che mostri l’essere e non l’apparire, e in particolare, se si parla del divino, e quindi di un altro tipo di “spazio” oltre che di contenuto della rappresentazione stessa, non deve meravigliare che la filosofia religiosa russa e un autore come Pavel Florenskij si pongano in maniera specifica il problema della “verità del naturalismo” quasi come di una contraddizione in termini. Il problema esiste e si colloca precisamente al fondo di una definizione estetica (nel senso originario e filosofico del termine) dell’arte iconografica. Parafrasando il titolo di un celebre studio di Hans Belting, siamo qui di fronte a una direttrice Firenze-Mosca, i cui due termini sono i poli antitetici di una differente concezione dell’arte e della natura che viene esaminata in questo saggio. La prospettiva rovesciata, dunque, come elemento simbolico di una intera concezione del mondo, come rovesciamento del mondo stesso.
Questo testo – breve ma denso nei contenuti – ricostruisce nei suoi nodi essenziali la vicenda filosofica relativa all’icona russa, soprattutto nell’analisi dei concetti chiave di arte e natura; di mondo e rappresentazione di quest’ultimo; di tempo e realtà, alla luce di una visione “iconica” e rovesciata di tutti questi rapporti.
Andrea Oppo, La prospettiva inversa. Il senso dell'icona russa, collana Bibliotheca minima, PFTS University Press, Cagliari 2016, 122 pp.
Contents: Beckett’s philosophy as a discourse on ‘exits’ – Beckett as Essayist – From Dante to Proust: Beckett’s Literary Criticism Years – In Dialogue with Van Velde: Painting and Philosophy – Theodor Adorno and Beckett – Beckett’s Aesthetics of truth – Exhausting the Possible Field of Narrative: Deleuze and Beckett – Beckett with Jerzy Grotowski – Thinking Differently from Thinking: The Body in Beckett’s Later Theatre – Beyond the Stalemate of Subjectivity.