EMANUELE CASTRUCCI

Convenzionalismo etico-politico e svolta epocale seicentesca  

N. 3/1987

Summary - In this essay the A. deals with some of the intellectual problems arising from the foundation of the modern European State. With a particular regard to the early-absolutist French experience (16th and 17th centuries), he points out the epistemological consequences of a new political philosophy, characterized by ethical 'relativism' , 'decisionistic' jurisprudence and 'physicalist' natural science.

In moralists and political writers as Montaigne, Charron, La Mothe Le Vayer, Naudé, Sorbière, the A. finds very important philosophical metaphors concerning a new image of political order (e.g. the clear division between 'internal' and 'external' sphere of experience, or the powerful metaphor of the 'machine'). These findings contribute to explain the intellectual connection between 'conventionalism' and 'decisionism' , 'libertinism' and 'nihilism' in the main French free thinkers.

According to the A., the history of the ideas reveals a deep continuity in all the forms of early-nihilist thought, whose most important expression is Thomas Hobbes' theory of Leviathan. Particular attention is devoted then to the striking similitudes in 'rationalist' ethics of Thomas Hobbes and in 'nihilistic' genealogy of morals of Friedrich Nietzsche.

The main purpose of this essay, drawn from a larger study (Ordine convenzionale e pensiero decisionista. Saggio sui presupposti intellettuali dello Stato moderno nel Seicento francese, Milano, Giuffrè, 1981), is to construct a theoretical approach to the modern perception of ethical and political experience, starting from the contemporary concept of 'crisis of experience' (in the sense of Walter Benjamin).