Overview

This book offers a new and original hypothesis on the origin of modal ontology, whose roots can be traced back to the mathematical debate about incommensurable magnitudes, which forms the implicit background for Plato’s later dialogues and culminates in the definition of being as dynamis in the Sophist. Incommensurable magnitudes – also called dynameis by Theaetetus – are presented as the solution to the problem of non-being and serve as the cornerstone for a philosophy of difference and becoming. This shift also marks the passage to another form of rationality – one not of the measure, but of the mediation. The book argues that the ontology and the rationality which arise out of the discovery of incommensurable constitutes a thread that runs through the entire history of philosophy, one that leads to Kantian transcendentalism and to the philosophies derived from it, such as Hegelianism and philosophical hermeneutics. Readers discover an insightful exchange with some of the most important issues in philosophy, newly reconsidered from the point of view of an ontology of the incommensurable. These issues include the infinite, the continuum, existence, and difference. This text appeals to students and researchers in the fields of ancient philosophy, German idealism, philosophical hermeneutics and the history of mathematics.

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9783030690076

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Reviews

“Dynamis shines in its encyclopedic approach. It provides rigorous encounters with central theses of major thinkers … via a shared fundamental problem of making sense of the existence of incommensurability. … Dynamis is commendable for its focus on incommensurables in a context where the philosophical engagement with mathematics rarely treads, outside the topics of set theory or the foundations of mathematics.” (Michael J. Ardoline, Comparative and Continental Philosophy, Vol. 15 (1-2), 2023)

Author Information

Gaetano Chiurazzi is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Torino (Italy) and Director of Project at the Collège International de Philosophie (Paris).He studied and worked as research fellow in the Universities of Torino, Berlin, Heidelberg, Paris, Oxford, Warsaw. His interests are especially directed to philosophical hermeneutics, ontology, metaphysics, theory of judgment, philosophy of translation, with a particular focus on Ancient Greek Philosophy, Classic German Philosophy and Contemporary French Philosophy. He is the author of many publications in several languages and his books are translated into English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbian.With Gianni Vattimo he is the co-editor of Tropos. Rivista di ermeneutica e critica filosofica.

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