Philosophy, Mysticism, and the Political: Essays on Dante

Description

Among today's Italian philosophers, Massimo Cacciari is perhaps the most assiduous commentator of Dante. Philosophy, Mysticism, and the Political collects all of Cacciari's writings on Dante to this day, from his masterful analysis of St. Francis of Assisi in Dante's Paradiso and Giotto's frescoes to a new consideration of Dante's European idea of empire as a federation of nations, peoples, and languages. Cacciari does not force Dante into any philosophical straitjacket. Rather, he walks with Dante, takes notes, asks questions, raises issues, and tries to understand the Divine Comedy in Dante's terms. Cacciari approaches Dante's Ulysses and the theologico-philosophical vertigo of Paradiso not as a critic but from the point of view of a faithful, assiduous, perceptive, sometimes perplexed, and sometimes worshipful reader. Cacciari's analysis shows once more that Dante does not belong to the past. Dante creates his own age and stays with us whenever we wish to follow his path. Contents Introduction: Nostalgia for the Empire, or Dante’s Metapolitics Touching Dante The Mystery of Saint Francis A Sin against Aristotle The Politics of Heaven Toward a European Empire? German Dante Chapter 1 Double Portrait: Saint Francis of Assisi in Dante and Giotto I II III IV V VI Chapter 2 The “Sin” of Ulysses I II Addendum Chapter 3 Dante’s Divine Perception (Aesthesis Theia) Chapter 4 The Concrete Ineffable: The Last Cantos of the Commedia Chapter 5 Dante’s Intellectual Love Chapter 6 Latin and Vernacular in the De vulgari eloquentia Chapter 7 On Dante’s Political Theology Chapter 8 A Brief Note on the German Reception of Dante Chapter 9 Schelling’s Dante Notes Chapter Sources Index