RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

Phenomenology, narration, ethical-political reflection: texts and themes of French thought in the twentieth-century

University Co-ordinator

Università degli Studi di LECCE - FILOSOFIA E SCIENZE SOCIALI - LECCE(LE)

Research Unit Leader

Giovanni INVITTO

Description

The program of the operational Unit of the University of Lecce proposes a study of the posthumous works by Sartre and by Merleau-Ponty that have been published in a great number of edition during the last twenty years.
As to Sartre, we take into consideration "Cahiers pour une morale" (edited by A. Elkaïm-Sartre, Gallimard, Paris 1983) and the second volume of "Critique de la raison dialectique, L'intelligibilité de l'histoire" (edited by A. Elkaïm-Sartre, Gallimard, Paris 1985) and, among the others posthumous works, "Écrits de jeunesse" (edited by M. Contat e M. Rybalka). Sartre's last publications have underlined the primary importance of a secular ethics seen in close relationship with instances of political innovation, as well as an interest for narration and self-narration as a moment of development of the intricate nexus between existence, unconscious and writing (see "L'idiot de la famille", dedicato a Flaubert).
As to Merleau-Ponty, we will take into account the notes from University courses and those held at the Collège de France. Among other posthumous texts: "Merleau-Ponty à la Sorbonne, résumé de cours 1949-1952" (Cynara, Paris 1988); "La nature" (Lèctures at the Collège de France 1956-1960, edited by D. Séglard, Seuil, Paris 1995); "Notes de Cours 1959-1961" (edited by S. Ménasé, Gallimard, Paris 1996) and "L'institution. La passività. Notes de cours au Collège de France (1954-1955)" (edited by D. Darmaillacq, C. Lefort e S. Ménasé, Belin, Paris 2003).
Our investigation already followed by some of researchers of this project, concern in particular: 1) la Bibliothèque Nationale de France (B.N.F), Center Richelieu; 2) la Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Yale University (Yale); 3) l'Harry Ransom Humanieties Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin (HRHRC, Austin). To quote just a few: as to Sartre, texts are not still published: L'Image dans la vie psychologique: rôle et nature (1927), memories to get a diploma of superior studies of philosophy; Egalité et liberté (in 1950s), an attempt to give a philosophy of period of transition between Ancien Régime-Révolution and to think about the place attributed to violence in the history; Notes sur les Valeurs, (1956), preparatory work for the Critique; La Morale et l'Histoire (1964-1965), this contain the lectures of Sartre, those held at the Cornell University in 1964.
As to Merleau-Ponty the last researches and editions of unpublished works have marked the ontological tension of the French philosopher in the last decade of his phenomenological investigation. At the same time the author of "Sens non-sens" continued his aesthetical investigations, devoted above all to painting it as a course that precedes the ontological approach, even before the philosophical course.
Paul Ricoeur's thought finds a place in the perspective of a hermeneutic reason aimed at highlighting the centrality of the "Sé narrative", with his distinction of the "piccola etica" between ethical and moral.
Simone Weil and Simone de Beauvoir constitute, although from different and somewhat opposite settings, two poles of women's thinking which, in 19th-century France, had already had several exemplary protagonists. The present research about Simone Weil will analyse in-depth mainly the fragments contained in the "Cahiers" (the first volume edited by Plon to Paris in 1951), published posthumously. There the young scholar combines scientific with socio-political interests within the new fideistic vision she had developed after her conversion to Christianity.
Simone de Beauvoir will be studied by comparing the latest results of the philosophy of gender difference to which she gave raise during the mid-1940s.
Our research is based on the assumption that, once again, French – and not only French – followers, leaded by Luce Irigaray from the journal "Speculum" try to present a changed historical context, new modes of thinking about gender difference, no longer antagonistic or limited to the space of a woman thought based on simple claims (on the development of thinking about gender difference from Simone de Beauvoir on, also in France, see "Il filo(sofare) di Arianna" (edited by A. Ales Bello e F. Brezzi, Mimesis, Milano 2001).
These theme represent the primary threads of our investigation already followed by the Unity of Lecce. Nonetheless we cannot exclude that, during the stage of in-depth study, our research may discover new aspects, themes, thinkers that will be taken into consideration thus becoming subjects of further analyses.