Paolo Virno is an Italian philosopher whose work delves into political philosophy and cultural theory. His writings often focus on analyzing contemporary forms of labor, revolutionary strategies, and the complexities of modern society. Virno critically examines how social and political relations can be reshaped within the context of post-Fordism and globalization. His intellectual approach is characterized by a deep reflection on the impacts of technology and capitalism on the human experience.
Exploring the concept of the "multitude," Paolo Virno delves into its significance in grasping the complexities of modern existence. He examines how this idea reflects collective experiences and challenges in today's society, offering insights into social dynamics and individual agency. Through a philosophical lens, Virno articulates the implications of the multitude in various contexts, making it essential for understanding contemporary life and its myriad interactions.
A philosophical exploration of what capitalistic societies truly mean for the individual. A short vade mecum for unrepentant materialism, The Idea of World collects three essays by Italian philosopher Paulo Virno that are intricately wrapped around one another. The first essay, "Mundanity," tries to clarify what the term "world", as referred to the perceptual and historical context of our existence, means--both with and against Kant and Wittgenstein. How should we understand expressions such as "worldly people," "the course of the world," or "getting by in this world"? The second, "Virtuosity and Revolution," is a minor political treatise. Virno puts forward a set of concepts capable of confronting the magnetic storm that has knocked out the compasses that every reflection on the public sphere has relied on since the seventeenth century. The third, "The Use of Life", is the shorthand delineation of a research program on the notion of use. What exactly are we doing when we use a hammer, a time span, or an ironic sentence? And, above all, what does the use of the self--of one's own life, which lies at the basis of all uses--amount to in human existence? Presenting his ideas in three distinct vignettes, Virno examines how philosophy of language, anthropology, and political theory are inextricably linked.
"Virno's first book, revised in 2010, and one of the first important considerations of "immaterial labor" from a heterodox Marxist perspective. With an introduction by Giorgio Agamben"-- Provided by publisher
As speaking animals, we continuously make use of an unassuming grammatical particle, without suspecting that what is at work in its inconspicuousness is a powerful apparatus, which orchestrates language, signification, and the world at large. What particle might this be? The word not. In Essay on Negation, Paolo Virno argues that the importance of the not is perhaps comparable only to that of money--that is, the universality of exchange. Negation is what separates verbal thought from silent cognitive operations, such as feelings and mental images. Speaking about what is not happening here and now, or about properties that are not referable to a given object, the human animal deactivates its original neuronal empathy, which is prelinguistic; it distances itself from the prescriptions of its own instinctual endowment and accesses a higher sociality, negotiated and unstable, which establishes the public sphere. In fact, the speaking animal soon learns that the negative statement does not amount to the linguistic double of unpleasant realities or destructive emotions: while it rejects them, negation also names them and thus includes them in social life. Virno sees negation as a crucial effect of civilization, one that is, however, also always exposed to further regressions. Taking his cue from a humble word, the author is capable of unfolding the unexpected phenomenology of the negating consciousness.
This book places two key notions up against each other to imagine a new way of conceptualizing historical time.
Originally published in Italian in 2002, When the Word Becomes Flesh provides a compelling contribution to the understanding of language and its relation to human nature and social relationships. Adopting Aristotle's definition of the human being as a linguistic and political animal, Paolo Virno frames the act of speech as a foundational philosophical issue -- an act that in its purely performative essence ultimately determines our ability to pass from the state of possibility to one of actuality: that is, from the power to act to action itself. As the ultimate public act, speech reveals itself to be an intrinsically political practice mediating between biological invariants and changing historical determinations. In his most complete reflection on the topic to date, Virno shows how language directly expresses the conditions of possibility for our experience, from both a transcendental and a biological point of view. Drawing on the work of such twentieth-century giants as Ferdinand de Saussure, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Edmund Husserl, and Gottlob Frege, Virno constructs a powerful linguistic meditation on the political challenges faced by the human species in the twenty-first century. It is in language that human nature and our historical potentialities are fully revealed, and it is language that can guide us toward a more aware and purposeful realization of them.