During the darkest years of the SecondWorldWar, the French esthetician Étienne Souriau (long for- gotten and recently rediscovered) developed an original pluralist ontology based on the notion of “mode of existence”. Unlike the better-known Jamesian pluralism (which I will absume as an “ontic” variety of pluralism), Souriau’s perspective is characterized by the fact of being an “existen- tial” pluralism, namely a pluralism of the “modes” (or “genres”) of existence. How many modes are there? In his original inquiry into being, Souriau in- troduces two different existential “cycles”: with- in the former, which aims at investigating the “on- tic realm” starting from the phenomenon’s mode of being, he distinguishes three modes of existence “in aseity” (phenomenon, thing and soul) and “in abaliety” (imaginary, possible and virtual). On the opposite, in the second cycle, which investigates the world of the “synaptic”, Souriau identifies at least two relevant modes: the event, and an enig- matic “supra-existential” reality.This paper aims at providing a short introduction to this original on- tology of the modes of existence.
Il "pluralismo esistenziale" di Etienne Souriau. Breve introduzione alla filosofia dei modi di esistenza
DOMENICALI, Filippo
2016
Abstract
During the darkest years of the SecondWorldWar, the French esthetician Étienne Souriau (long for- gotten and recently rediscovered) developed an original pluralist ontology based on the notion of “mode of existence”. Unlike the better-known Jamesian pluralism (which I will absume as an “ontic” variety of pluralism), Souriau’s perspective is characterized by the fact of being an “existen- tial” pluralism, namely a pluralism of the “modes” (or “genres”) of existence. How many modes are there? In his original inquiry into being, Souriau in- troduces two different existential “cycles”: with- in the former, which aims at investigating the “on- tic realm” starting from the phenomenon’s mode of being, he distinguishes three modes of existence “in aseity” (phenomenon, thing and soul) and “in abaliety” (imaginary, possible and virtual). On the opposite, in the second cycle, which investigates the world of the “synaptic”, Souriau identifies at least two relevant modes: the event, and an enig- matic “supra-existential” reality.This paper aims at providing a short introduction to this original on- tology of the modes of existence.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
