Hegel's philosophical ideas clash with contemporary post-1989 capitalism, particularly his focus on historicity during the so-called end of history and his emphasis on communitarian subjectivity amidst individualistic isolation. His advocacy for an ethical State and the importance of political authority stand in stark contrast to today's deregulated market and liberalist values, highlighting the profound incompatibility between his thought and modern capitalist structures.
Since antiquity, Epicurus' thought has been compared to a powerful drug able to cure the pains of the soul that have always tormented man preventing him from living a peaceful existence: but we know that the Greek term pharmakon can be interpreted in its two opposite meanings of medicine and poison; and indeed, the same duplicity animates Epicurus' philosophy which, by acting as a medicine for the human soul, also has the effect of a poison, destroying from within, philosophy traditionally conceived as a disinterested contemplation of truth. The philosophical revolution undertaken by Epicurus as a fracture with respect to all the previous tradition, from Thales to Aristotle, coincides with an inversion of the traditional relation between man and cosmos, between theory and practice: the classic question "what is reality made of?" is replaced by the Epicurean question that is at the basis of his philosophical anthropocentrism: "how must reality be made and how should one understand it in order to be happy?". Each specific articulation of Epicurean philosophy is subordinate to the task of achieving a happy existence that is in no way inferior to any of the divine realities'.
Exploring the relevance of Marx in today's capitalist landscape, Diego Fusaro's work challenges readers to reconsider Marx's ideas after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The book argues that while Marx alone cannot address contemporary issues, his critique remains essential for understanding and overcoming capitalism's contradictions. Fusaro presents a version of Marx that transcends dogmatism, advocating for a blend of idealism and materialism that promotes ethical politics and a vision of 'cosmopolitan communitarianism,' essential for a critical understanding of modern society.
"It will then be clear that the world has long possessed the dream of a thing of which it only needs to possess the consciousness in order really to possess it." Karl Marx One of the greatest unsolved issues that Karl Marx bequeathed to his interpreters concerns the legitimacy of practical and theoretical hope, both in the frame of his thought and in the wider horizon of philosophy. The entire Marxian work seems to be enigmatically suspended between the opposite dimensions of science and hope. The interpretative lines chosen by Ernst Bloch and Karl Löwith see in Marx a philosopher of hope more than a philosopher of science; and these reflections recognize the inevitable utopian tension in relation to which science is a secondary and functional phenomenon. They both claim that hope is at the heart of Marx's thought; however, given the antithetic views about this feeling held in their philosophical reflections, they end up with an opposite evaluation of hope. One of the greatest unsolved issues that Karl Marx bequeathed to his interpreters concerns the legitimacy of practical and theoretical hope, both in the frame of his thought and in the wider horizon of philosophy.
The current European Union is too often presented as the perfect realisation of a Europe of the people and freedom. The present essay overturns the common way to understand this reality. A triumph of capitalism, which has now become absolute, the creation of the European Union has in fact proceeded to destabilise the hegemony of the political. It has paved the road to an irresistible cycle of privatisations and cuts to public spending, to forced precarisation of labour and to an ever-more sharp reduction of social rights, inflicting economic violence upon the subaltern and the most economically deprived. For this reason, the only way to re-imagine the future, to vindicate the people and work, and to continue the struggle that was Marx's and Gramsci's, is to move from a radical critique of finance and the Euro.