• Share this:

The Contemporary Italian Philosophy series showcases for English readers the original work of present-day Italian philosophers working in the continental tradition.

Between Care and Justice: The Passions as Social Resource, by Elena Pulcini and translated by Silvia Benso & Antonio Calcagno, proposes a form of moral education that joins care and justice to nurture and develop the desirable moral sentiments for a more just world at the interpersonal, social, political economic, and environmental levels.

Elena Pulcini (1950–2021), an internationally renowned philosopher of care, was at the forefront of thinking and creating a new ethical framework to respond efficaciously to problems that affect individuals at a global level. This translation of Pulcini's last work addresses perhaps the two fundamental questions for our times—namely, "Why care for others when we are not bound by personal relationships?" and "Why commit to justice even when it does not personally affect us?"

Geophilosophy of the Mediterranean, by Caterina Resta and edited by Rita Fulco, Sandro Gorgone, Giuliana Gregorio, and Valentina Surace, aims to rethink Europe under the sign of openness and hospitality, starting from the Mediterranean—the sea that is so important for the history of the entire West—a sea of differences with a deep unitary root conceived as a paradigm for rethinking new and original forms of social and political coexistence.

The essays collected here outline a geophilosophy of the Mediterranean—a sea of great importance in the history of Europe and the wider West. Conceived from a geophilosophical perspective, the Mediterranean is a sea surrounded by lands—that is, a "pluriverse" of different cultures and religions, which have often become entangled in conflicts. Nevertheless, they have also demonstrated a remarkable capacity for coexistence, as exemplified by multilingual, multiethnic, and multireligious Sicily during the reign of Roger II of Hauteville.

Also new this month is Mental Health Resilience: The Social Context of Coping with Mental Illness, by Abigail Gosselin, examines the forms of support, resources, and opportunities a person with mental illness requires to have the resilience needed for mental health recovery.
"Although Mental Health Resilience is written philosophically, with tight analyses of ideas, it is a book that can and should appeal to a wide general, educated readership. The key contribution is the highly sophisticated way Gosselin shows that individual resilience is impacted by social frameworks that can enable or hinder the capacities for individual resilience to be realized. By applying this account of resilience to the case of mental illness, she has made an important contribution." — Steve Matthews, Australian Catholic University

Now available in paperback and part of our Contemporary Continental Philosophy series, The Promise of Friendship: Fidelity within Finitude, by Sarah Horton, argues that friendship is the gift of a world that is not one's own and that transforms one's world in unforseeable ways.

"In this impressive new book, Sarah Horton examines the enigmas, paradoxes, and aporiae of friendship. Through her engagement with a full cast of philosophical, theological, and literary thinkers, she makes a compelling case for friendship as a possible impossibility. This is an important new work—and an important new voice—in Continental ethics and philosophy of religion. Scholars of French phenomenology and deconstruction will be particularly interested in this work, since Horton's discussion is oriented around the philosophy of alterity found in thinkers like Ricoeur, Levinas, and Derrida, as well as current authors like Richard Kearney and Emmanuel Falque."— Brian Gregor, California State University, Dominguez Hills

Also available in paperback, Telling Silence: Thresholds to No Where in Ordinary Experiences, by Charles E. Scott, aims to let silence disclose itself by cultivating attunements with silences’ happening, and is part of our Insinuations: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature series.

"Charles Scott does not write the way other philosophers write. He does not think the way they think. Silence tells him much more than it does the rest of us. If readers allow their imaginations to be stretched, Scott will show them how many and vast are the secrets of silence." — David Farrell Krell, author of A Black Forest Walden: Conversations with Henry David Thoreau and Marlonbrando