Giacomo Marramao

Giacomo Marramao, born in Catanzaro in 1946, studied at the University of Florence (where he graduated in Philosophy under Eugenio Garin's guidance in 1969) and at the University of Frankfurt.

Between 1976 and 1995 he was professor of Philosophy of politics and History of Political Doctrines at the Istituto Orientale in Naples (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universit%C3%A0_degli_Studi_di_Napoli_%22L%27Orientale%22).

He was visiting professor in European and American universities: Paris (Sorbonne, Nanterre), Berlin (Freie Universität), London (Warburg Institute), Vienna, Madrid (Complutense), Barcelona, Santander, Oviedo, Murcia, Granada, Maiorca, New York (Columbia University), Mexico City (Unam), Buenos Aires (Uba), Rosario, Cordoba, Rio de Janeiro (Universidade Federal), San Paolo (Unesp).fact|date=January 2008

At the beginning of the 1980s he was co-founder of influent magazines like "Laboratorio politico" and "Il Centauro" - now closed.

He is now professor of Political Philosophy at the Philosophy and Social Sciences Department of the Third University of Rome, member of the Collège International de Philosophie of Paris and professor honoris causa at the University of Bucharest. He is co-editor of "Iride" - a magazine of public philosophy - and director of the Fondazione Basso, in Rome. Many of his books are translated into foreign languages, such as "Kairos: Towards an Ontology of Due Time", The Davies Group Publishers, Aurora CO 2006, and the English version of "Passaggio a Occidente", due to be published in 2008 by Verso CO, London-New York.

In his book "Marxism and Revisionism in Italy" (1971) he regards Gentile’s thought as the philosophical keystone of Italian Marxism. From 1976 until 1995 he was professor of Political Philosophy and History of Political Doctrines at the Istituto Universitario Orientale of Naples (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universit%C3%A0_degli_Studi_di_Napoli_%22L%27Orientale%22). Respectively in 1979 and 1985 his books The politician and transformations and Power and secolarization are published. He has been one of the most important re-discoverers of Carl Schmitt’s thought and of decisionism. Starting from the study of Italian and European Marxism ("Marxism and Revisionism in Italy", 1971; "Austro-Marxism and left wing Socialism between the two Wars", 1977), Marramao has analysed the political categories of Modernity suggesting – on the save wavelength as Frankfurters ("The politician and transformations", 1979) and Max Weber ("The disenchanted order", 1985)– an innovative symbolic-genealogical reconstruction of them. According to this view, which recovers Karl Löwith’s historical-philosophical hypothesis, in modern forms of social organizations there are settled meanings deriving from a process of secolarization of religious contents – that is, the reproposal of the Christian symbolic horizon inside a wordly dimension. In particular, secolarization finds its centre in a process of "temporalization of history" thanks to which the categories of time (that translate Christian eschatology into a generic opening to the future: progress, revolution, liberation, etc.) gain an increasing centrality in the political representations of Modernity. Based on these reflections – also exposed in "After the Leviathan", 1995; "Westward passage. Philosophy and globalization", 2003 – a clear thematization of the philosophical problem of time has grafted. In opposition to Bergson’s and Heidegger’s views – which delineate with different shades a pure form of temporality, more original than its representations and spatializations – Marramao declares that the link time-space is inseparable and, also connecting to contemporary Physics, he asserts that the structure of Time possesses an aporetic and impure profile, compared to which the dimension of space is the formal reference necessary to think its paradoxes ("Minima temporalia", 1990; "Kairos: Towards an Ontology of Due Time", 1992).

Bibliography

"Il politico e le trasformazioni", De Donato, Bari 1979 (Isbn: CL 0703575) – Spanish translation, "Lo político y las transformaciones", Siglo XXI, México City 1982 (Isbn = 968231092X); Portoguese translation, "O Político e as transformaçoes", Officina de Livros, Belo Horizonte 1990 (Isbn: 056086357)

"Potere e secolarizzazione" [I ed. 1983] , new edited and extended edition, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 2005 (Isbn: 8833915824) – German translation, "Macht und Säkularisierung", Verlag Neue Kritik, Frankfurt am Main 1989 (Isbn: 3801502074); Spanish translation, "Poder y secularización", Península, Barcelona 1989 (Isbn: 9788429729238); Portoguese translation, "Poder e secularização", Unesp, São Paulo 1995 (Isbn: 8571390843)

"Minima temporalia. Tempo, spazio, esperienza" [I ed. 1990] , new edited and extended edition, Sossella, Roma 2005 (Isbn: 8887995850) – German translation, "Minima temporalia. Zeit, Raum, Erfahrung", Passagen Verlag, Wien 1992 (Isbn: 3900767823); Spanish translation in progress by Editorial Gedisa, Barcelona

"Kairós. Apologia del tempo debito" [I ed. 1992] , new edition. Laterza, Roma-Bari 2005 (Isbn: 884204122X) – English translation, edited, "Kairós: Towards an Ontology of Due Time", The Davies Group Publishers, Aurora (CO) 2006 (Isbn: 1888570377)

"Cielo e terra", Laterza, Roma-Bari 1994 (Isbn: 8842043621) – Spanish translation, "Cielo y tierra", Paidós, Barcelona-Buenos Aires-México 1998 (Isbn: 8449305152); Portoguese translation, "Céu e terra", Unesp, São Paulo 1997 (Isbn: 8571391122); German translation, "Die Säkularisierung der westlichen Welt", Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1996 (Isbn: 3458342591); French translation, "Ciel et terre", Bayard, Paris 2006 (Isbn: 2227473754)

"Dopo il Leviatano. Individuo e comunità" [I ed. 1995] , nuova ed. riveduta e ampliata, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 2000 (Isbn: 8833912590)

"Passaggio a Occidente. Filosofia e globalizzazione", Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 2003 (Isbn: 8833912566) – Spanish translation, "Pasaje a Occidente", Katz Editores, Buenos Aires 2006 (Isbn: 9871283318); English translation, "Westward Passage", Verso, London-New York 2008 (forthcoming)