Per un ethos filosofico. Il caso Löwith

Grounded in the keywords:skepsis, theorein, kosmos, this paper — an organic part of a wider analysis of Karl Löwith’s thought that, starting from his Habilitationsschrift, tries to outline the features of a specific anthropological paradigm, defined as Mitanthropologie — discusses the Lowith’s skeptical ethos, meant as the most original contribution of his philosophical route as well as a possible and paradoxical husserlian inheritance, that is, a heterodox phenomenological way that aims at recovering the Lebenswelt. Concretely, this paper starts from a comparison between the words “doubts” (Zweifel) and “despair” (Verzweiflung), in accordance with their diVerent declension in Italian and German. According to the löwithian view, philosophy has to be hoVnungslos but not verzweifelt, that is, hope–less but not desperate. The crucial diVerence between HoVnung and Verzweiflung consists of the skepsis, that Lowith takes to be the essential virtue of knowledge, her sophrosyne. According to Löwith, the real sceptic is the one who is able to transcend his own skepsis within the framework of skepticism itself, under the condition of recovering its ethical other than noetic background, its “natural” context. Therefore, the real skeptic is the one who can direct his mind to contemplation (theorein), viewed as the most noble practice of human beings. Consequently, if the real sceptic results to be—ipso facto—a contemplative being, then skepsis is always a theorein. By considering theorein as an end in itself, Löwith put in evidence the real arché and telos of the skeptical transcendence: the totality of the kosmos meant as a one–whole, where just the man can find his own place and—consequently — his own measure. The metron of the skepsis is, therefore, the theorein that, in turn, has the kosmos as the unique horizon and parameter of reference. The ultimate lesson of the Löwith’s “cosmocentric anthropology” finds an eVective synthesis in the paraphrase of a well–known Scheler’s maxim: “The human place position of man [is] in the cosmos”.

Alla luce di un confronto con il pensiero di Karl Loewith, il presente contributo illustra la possibilità di immaginare, qui ed ora, un ethos filosofico improntato al recupero di una scepsi radicale (non meramente logica, bensì patica). Da naturale pendant di una tale scepsi funge, come dimostra l'esempio loewithiano, la ripresa di un primato del theorein nella sua accezione originaria. Ovvero come pathos alternativo tanto alle logiche prestazionali delle attuali teorie filosofiche quanto a quelle opzioni fideistiche, alle quali la filosofia deve imporsi di rimanere sempre estranea.