Franco Volpi (
Vicenza
Vicenza ( , ; ) is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region at the northern base of the ''Monte Berico'', where it straddles the Bacchiglione River. Vicenza is approximately west of Venice and east of Milan.
Vicenza is a thr ...
, 4 October 1952 – 14 April 2009), was a
philosopher,
historian of philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
and a professor at
Padua University
The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from B ...
, who wrote regularly to the Italian newspaper
La Repubblica
''la Repubblica'' (; the Republic) is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. It was founded in 1976 in Rome by Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso (now known as GEDI Gruppo Editoriale) and led by Eugenio Scalfari, Carlo Caracciolo and Arnol ...
. Volpi was an expert in
German philosophy
German philosophy, here taken to mean either (1) philosophy in the German language or (2) philosophy by Germans, has been extremely diverse, and central to both the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy for centuries, from Gottfried ...
; in particular,
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th ce ...
and
Arthur Schopenhauer. He investigated the relation between
nihilism and the
nothing
Nothing, the complete absence of anything, has been a matter of philosophical debate since at least the 5th century BC. Early Greek philosophers argued that it was impossible for ''nothing'' to exist. The atomists allowed ''nothing'' but only i ...
, and between philosophy and current
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
. In one of his works, he stated that "real philosophical questions have a history but have no answer." For him, nihilism undermines truth, weakens religion, and dissolves
dogmatism
Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Isla ...
.
Volpi also taught at the
University of Witten/Herdecke as well as the Universities of Laval, Poitiers, and Nice.
Volpi died on 14 April 2009, at the age of 56, after being run over by an automobile as he rode his bicycle.
Works
* ''Heidegger e Brentano. L'aristotelismo e il problema dell'univocità dell'essere nella formazione filosofica del giovane Martin Heidegger'', Cedam, Padova, 1976, pp. 144
* ''La rinascita della filosofia pratica in Germania'', Francisci, Albano/Padova, 1980 in:''Filosofia pratica e scienza politica'', Francisci, Abano/Padova, 1980, pp. 180 (con Carlo Natali, Laura Iseppi, Claudio Pacchiani)
* ''Heidegger e Aristotele'', Daphne, Padova, 1984, pp. 226 (ristampa Bari, Laterza, 2010)
* ''Lexikon der philosophischen Werke'', Kröner, Stuttgart, 1988
* ''Sulla fortuna del concetto di decadence nella cultura tedesca: Nietzsche e le sue fonti francesi'', "Filosofia politica", 1995
* ''Il nichilismo'',
Biblioteca Universale Laterza, Laterza, Roma-Bari, pp. IV-152; trad. port. ''O niilismo'', Edicoes Loyola, São Paulo, 1999, pp. 163
* ''Guida a Heidegger'', Laterza, Roma-Bari 1997, 1998
2, pp. XVI-387
* ''Hegel e i suoi critici, Per i licei e gli istituti magistrali'', Laterza, Roma-Bari 1998
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Volpi, Franco
20th-century Italian philosophers
Road incident deaths in Italy
1952 births
2009 deaths