Oltre il Pensiero Meridiano- What is Called Meridian Thinking?

Maurizio Vito, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

In Italy, the last decade staged the blooming of a debate about Franco Cassano’s book Il Pensiero Meridiano, although ideas and questions he addressed come from far and have been running underneath since long ago. “The question of Il Pensiero Meridiano” is in fact the question of modernity. Cassano maintains that Mediterranean States ought to turn to their geopolitical and watery axis in order to reconsider their space-temporal (and, accordingly, political) priorities, insofar as they culturally and historically come from a Meridian cradle: in other words, they first of all belong to a non-Western paradigm that they eventually left behind. While this standpoint reveals suggestive insights (which find new vigor in Bruno Pinchard’s works), I deem it fails to openly acknowledge-hence, consequently, to successfully scrutinize-the role of power and history in modern political-economical state. My paper will emphasize in depth the above mentioned limits, obliterating the cons and strengthening the pros through a close reading of works such as, for example, Mario Tronti’s La politica al tramonto and Con le spalle al futuro, in which the Author shrewdly analyzes the state-of-art of political debate while providing unusual and uncannily secular “prophetic” outlooks. Moreover, Massimo Cacciari’s Geophilosophy will provide a mythical and philosophical support around which buoy further political viewpoints. In sum, the main concern of my paper will be to put side by side the differences embodied by “meridian” and “engaged” philosophers (because “il rapporto tra le differenze (con le loro dinamiche complesse, conflittuali e spesso tragiche) è qui sin dall’inizio il problema,” as Cassano states) while suggesting how they can cross-fertilize each other.