The essay completes the review of the interpretations of Hegelian contradiction provided in Italy in the second half of the nineteenth century. Opening is critically discussed Emanuele Severino’s ‘paracoherentist’ thesis, who has argued that Hegel would have defended the PNC for sure, even if with no success. The long middle section is dedicated to Diego Marconi and Francesco Berto. The first – who has attempted to a formalization of Hegelian dialectic – maintains that in Hegel’s philosophy there are contradictions as well, but these are solved in the Absolute. Similarly Berto – who understands Hegelian dialectic as a holistic semantics – argues that the dialectical process represents a progressive ‘coherentization’, in which you move by the start from one major contradiction to a resolution of the same in the absolute Idea. Finally, the Author discusses Paolo Bettineschi’s interpretation, that is, just like the Severinian one, belonging to a ‘paracoherentist’ horizon.

In my essay I take into account the perspectives on the relationship between man and transcendence elaborated by two Italian philosophers of the same generation: Alberto Caracciolo (1918-1990) and Luigi Pareyson (1918-1991). In both has an essential role the “philosophy of the existence”, especially the meditations of Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger. Both Caracciolo and Pareyson develop a philosophy attentive to the religious experience. Their concentration on the structure of existence and their understanding of religion as existence “in the space of transcendence” or as “experience of transcendence” makes it interesting to carry out an analysis of some of their basic thoughts, in view of a reflection on the relationship between immanence and transcendence. Finally both Caracciolo and Pareyson place their meditation on religion in the horizon of “nihilism”, that they re-think critically as the figure that expresses the historical and spiritual situation of contemporary man.

The essay discusses Visentin’s theses presented in his book Il neoparmenidismo italiano. Vol II. Dal neoidealismo al neoparmenidismo (2011), which develops and concludes the critical reconstruction started in his Il neoparmenidismo italiano. Vol I. Le premesse storiche e filosofiche (2005). The contribution focuses on the four philosophers examined by Visentin: Guido Calogero and Luigi Scaravelli (both critics of Italian Idealism and forerunners of Neoparmenidism), Gennaro Sasso and Emanuele Severino (both examples of two different conceptions of Neoparmenidism). Common to these philosophers is the antinomic problem of negation, as well as that of empirical abstraction with regard to the transcendental request for a synthetic conception of the dialectical oppositions between, on the one side, being and nothing and, on the other side, logic and phenomenology. In the last part, the author introduces a critical discussion of Visentin’s theoretical position.

The essay focuses on the articles De Ruggiero wrote for the review “La Voce” across 1912 and 1913. The reflection on this cooperation, which is still nearly unknown, rapresents a privileged point of view on the early works of the Neapolitan philosopher. Starting from the reflection on the science, passing on through the consideration of contemporary philosophy, ending with the criticism of the concept of culture, De Ruggiero’s writings deal with important issues that were at the core of the Italian philosophical debate, with particular regard to the philosophies of Croce and Gentile.

In this interview, Carlo Cellucci recalls the main phases of his own scientific and academic path, from the first studies in logic in Milan to the late teaching at SAPIENZA University of Rome. The interview underlines the significance of Cellucci’s investigations into the nature of logics, philosophy and theory of knowledge for the meaning of human life and the possibility to “rethink philosophy” in a new, creative heuristic way.

The interview deals with Roberto Esposito’s book Pensiero vivente (2010) and its reception in Italy and abroad. Through the consideration of some of the main figures of Italian philosophy, Esposito proposes an original interpretation of Italian philosophical culture, focused on the topics of history and politics and contrasting both the analytic philosophy and the hermeneutic tradition, as well as French deconstruction.