Lecture by Professor Remo Bodei
Italian philosopher Remo Bodei will give a lecture at the Department of Philosophy of the University of NSW on the great German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
In the Berlin period Hegel considered the western world and the whole philosophy destined to enter a phase of decline. Some irreconcilable contradictions drive philosophy, the owl of Minerva that spreads its wings with the falling of dusk, to carefully watch and examine this difficult epoch, and to push the “mole” of history to dig underground. The owl sees but does not; the mole does, but sees not. While, therefore, the Berlin Hegel felt himself placed in a time when the prospects for the future appeared dark, in previous years, on the contrary, both for political and philosophical reasons, he believed that a new world was about to emerge, as he showed in the Phenomenology of Spirit, written between 1805-06 and concluded in October 1806.
Remo Bodei was born in Cagliari in 1938. After his graduation at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, he furthered his historical-philosophical studies in Tübingen, Freiburg in Breisgau, Heidelberg, Bochum and Berlin. A great figure of contemporary philosopy, he is currently professor emeritus at the University of Pisa, where he held the chair of history and philosopy until 2005. He is also visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was full professor between 2005 and 2011. He has been visiting professor in various European and American universities (Ottawa University, Toronto University, NYU, Université Libre de Bruxelles, École Normale Supérieure of Paris, Universitat de Girona, Universidad Autónoma de México).
His scientific interests were initially focused on German classical philosophy, on Idealism and the aesthetics of the “Goethezeit”; then, in the last decades, on culture and politics during the French Revolution, on theory and the history of passions and delusions, on delusion, on memory, oblivion, and the construction of individuality. He has published on these subjects many books, translated into different languages. Among the more recent, the most important are: Géometrie des passions (1997), Logiques des délires (2002), Destini personali. L’età della colonizzazione delle coscienze (2002), Immaginare altre vite (2013).
He speaks English, French, German and Spanish and is also an active member of many international scientific associations. He is “Grande Ufficiale” of the Italian Republic and “Chevalier des Palmes Académiques” of the French Republic. Since 2015 is corresponding member of the Accademia dei Lincei for the category of Moral, Historical and Philosophical Sciences.
The lecture will be given in English.