04538 - Poetics and Rhetoric

Learning outcomes

At the end of the lecture course the students acquire both a basic knowledge of the various disciplinary and doctrinal identities developed by Poetics and Rhetoric during its history, and the capacity to deal with guided interpretations of one or more than one among the “classics” that represented a turning point in the history of this discipline.

Course contents

First part:

Language, truth, music, commitment in Theodor W. Adorno’s critical theory.

The first part of this lecture course will investigate some fundamental aspects of Theodor W. Adorno’s thought, one of the main thinkers belonging to the tradition of the Frankfurt School’s critical theory of society. In particular, we will focus our attention on the relevance of the questions of critical knowledge, truth and commitment in Adorno’s philosophical conception of a “dialectic of enlightenment” later developed into a “negative dialectics”, connecting this question to that of language and of the role played by music (an artistic practice, the latter, with which Adorno constantly dealt throughout his life, both as music critic and philosopher of music and as a musician and composer himself) in shaping Adorno’s conception of philosophical thinking. In Adorno’s late masterpiece, Negative Dialectics, we read indeed: “Analogously [to music], instead of reducing philosophy to categories, one would in a sense have to compose it first. Its course must be a ceaseless self-renewal, by its own strength as well as in friction with whatever standard it may have”. In order to provide a reconstruction and an interpretation of the meaning of this sentence, in this part of the lecture course we will analyze into detail two forms of music that Adorno understood as somehow opposed to each other, and also as representing the opposite poles of “true” and “untrue” art, namely twelve-tone music, on the one side, and jazz and popular music, on the other side.

Second part:

The experience of language in Heidegger’s path of thinking.

Since language has become between the 19th and 20th Century a central philosophical issue both in the hermeneutic and in the analytic traditions, the second part of the course deals with a philosopher that has played a leading role in this debate: Martin Heidegger. His understanding of language will be considered under several aspects. In first place, great attention will be devoted to the relationship between language and the essence of man and to the problem of “huamnism”. A the same time, in order to come to a better understanding of the essence of language, the meaning and the possibilities of the dialogue between poetry and philosophy will be discussed. The relationship between poetry (or art in general) and philosophy has a long tradition, characterized at times by a mutual distrust (the ancient conflict mentioned by Plato). This distrust stems from the distance that separates philosophy, considered as true speech, and poetry, considered as false speech. But both, philosophy as well as poetry, are, each in its own right, an experience of language. Moving from this this fundamental connection, Heidegger deeply rethinks their relationship: he never implies that they are the same thing, but he asserts the fruitfulness of their encounter. To understand the direction of the dialogue between philosophy and poetry in Heidegger and to better grasp its very broad consequences, we will discuss on one side the metaphysical experience of language and on the other side the experience of language peculiar to a philosophical perspective that aims at going beyond metaphysics. Finally, the problem of translation considered as a philosophical issue will be mentioned. In a very famous passage, Heidegger espresse the following maxim: “Tell me what you think of translating, and I’ll tell you who you are”. As a matter of fact, the different concepts of translation are the result of different experiences of language and vice versa.

Readings/Bibliography

First part:

Th. W. Adorno e M. Horkheimer, Dialettica dell’illuminismo, Einaudi, Torino 1997, pp. 3-50.

Th. W. Adorno, “Schönberg e il progresso”, in Filosofia della musica moderna, Einaudi, Torino 2002, pp. 35-130.

Th. W. Adorno, Variazioni sul jazz. Critica della musica come merce, Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2018.

S. Marino, Le verità del non-vero. Tre studi su Adorno, teoria critica ed estetica, Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2019.

S. Marino, Auschwitz e popular culture: considerazioni estetico-politiche sulla presenza del genocidio nella cultura di massa, in M. Latini e E. Storace (a cura di), Auschwitz dopo Auschwitz. Poetica e politica di fronte alla Shoah, Meltemi, Roma 2017, pp. 79-119.

The bibliography may be subject to changes until the beginning of the lecture course.

Second Part:

Martin Heidegger, Lettera sull’umanismo, in Segnavia, a cura di F. Volpi, Adelphi, Milano 1978, pp. 267-315.

Martin Heidegger, Linguaggio tramandato e linguaggio tecnico, a cura di C. Esposito, ETS, PISA 1997.

Martin Heidegger, L'inno "Der Ister" di Hölderlin, trad. it. di C. Sandrin e U. Ugazio, Mursia, Milano 2003, pp. 58-59

Francesco Cattaneo, Ripensare l'umanità dell'uomo. Per un attraversamento storico-concettuale della «Lettera sull'"umanismo"» di Martin Heidegger, in «Paradosso», n. 2, 2019, pp. 91-2018 (It is suggested to read the entire issue n. 2/2019 of the journal "Paradosso", dedicated to the topic Umanesimo, Humanismus, humanisme. Filosofie dell'umano fra Rinascimento e contemporaneità).

François Fédier, Tradurre i “Beiträge zur Philosophie”, 1992, risorsa digitale (http://www.eudia.org/fedier_tradurre-i-beiträge-12/).

Gino Zaccaria, L’inizio greco del pensiero. Heidegger e l’essenza futura della filosofia, Christian Marinotti, Milano 1999, cap. IV, pp. 251-287.

The bibliography may be subject to changes until the beginning of the lecture course.

Teaching methods

Lectures, conversations and discussions with students.

Assessment methods

The final proof will take place in the form of an oral examination.

During the examination the teacher will assess whether the student has achieved or not some basic educational goals:

knowledge of the texts and capacity to contextualize authors and works;

comprehension of the fundamental concepts and capacity to provide a correct interpretation of them;

clarity in the explanation of concepts and accuracy in the use of philosophical terminology;

capacity to establish connections between the various authors and themes from both a historical and a strictly speaking conceptual point of view.

During the oral examination the teacher will assess if the student possesses the abovementioned knowledge and skills in a (more or less) complete, precise and adequate way, or vice-versa in a (more or less) incomplete, vague and superficial way.

The final grade will correspondently vary from excellent (30 and honors) to very good (30) to good (27-29) to fairly good (24-26) to more than enough (21-23) to merely enough (18-21) to unsatisfactory (<18).

Office hours

See the website of Stefano Marino

See the website of Francesco Cattaneo