Paolo Virno

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Paolo Virno (born June 27, 1952 in Naples ) is an Italian philosopher and semiotic who belongs to the Marxist movement. Because he had been a member of various illegal organizations during his student days, he was arrested in 1979 and charged with being a member of the Red Brigades . After several years in prison, he was eventually acquitted. He then founded the magazine Luogo Commune to publish the political ideas he had developed during his imprisonment. Virno currently teaches at the University of Rome .

Life

Paolo Virno was born in Naples, but spent his childhood and youth in Genoa. He gained his first political experience in the 1968 movement . It was there that he experienced the connection between personal fulfillment and anti-capitalism that would later form a key element of his political philosophy. At the beginning of the 1970s he moved with his family to Rome, where he studied philosophy at the university.

At the same time Virno was involved in the labor movement and was involved in the Potere operaio group , which dealt with the recruitment and mobilization of industrial workers. While the party communists, under the influence of the Soviet Union and China, tried to unite student associations and workers' unions, Potere Operaio mainly focused on the living conditions of factory and industrial workers with a program that followed Karl Marx's criticism of the organization of work oriented. Until its dissolution in 1973, Virno took part in this movement and organized protests and strikes in northern Italian factories.

In 1977 Virno defended his doctoral thesis on the concept of work and theory of consciousness by Theodor W. Adorno . At the same time he took an active part in the "Movement of '77", which was about the precariousness of workers. Together with Oreste Scalzano and Franco Piperno , he founded the Metropolitan Magazine , which was the theoretical body of the movement for some time. Two years later, Metropolitan editors were arrested and charged with being part of the Red Brigades .

The three-year imprisonment was a time of intense study for Virno and others. In 1982 Virno was sentenced to twelve years in prison for "subversive activities involving armed gangs". The accusation of belonging to the Red Brigades, however, had not been substantiated. Virno then went on appeal and was dismissed, while the case was referred to the second instance. In 1987 he and Piperno were finally acquitted. Virno's experiences from imprisonment flowed into the conception of the magazine Luogo Comune , which was devoted to the forms of life in the social situation of post-Fordism . In 1993, Virno moved from the position of editor-in-chief of Luogo Comune to the University of Urbino to teach philosophy. In 1996 he was invited to lectures at the University of Montreal . On his return to Italy, he received the Chair of Philosophy of Language, Semiotics and Ethics of Communication at the University of Cosenza in Calabria.

Theoretical work

Virno's early works were directly related to his political activities. Since he had pursued intensive philosophical studies with fellow inmates during the years of imprisonment, the focus of his work has shifted to more ambitious theoretical research areas such as political philosophy , linguistics and the investigation of the mass media .

On the one hand, Virno's studies in the philosophy of language have led him to confront classic philosophical topics, such as the analysis of subjectivity , with the limits set in linguistics; on the other hand, Virno has explored the ethical dimension of communication. The connection between these areas was found in a materialism that includes the processes of language and thought. In the tradition of Adorno and Alfred Sohn-Rethel , the connection between work, thinking, language, society and history forms the cohesion of his philosophical thinking for Virno.

Virno's philosophical concepts nonetheless retained a close connection to political theory and action. Virno essentially derived the terms “world”, “power”, “potential” and “history”, which are the main focal points of many of his works, from Marx. Virno, along with many of his contemporaries, such as Antonio Negri , spoke out against the hegemony of dialectical tradition within Marxist philosophy.

Virno claims that historical and linguistic concepts have a political value. If state, sovereignty, obedience, legality, legitimacy are accepted as invariant in the theory and philosophy of society, Virno polemically regards these terms as inventions of the seventeenth century with very specific and controversial political goals. The redefinition of the concepts of society is part of a set political task. Using the concept of emigration, Virno shows, as an example, how personal emotional experiences are understood as an act of resistance against established power and the status quo: It is assumed that a person on the run is the reaction to social structures. Virno has criticized such restrictions as symbolic of counterculture movements.

Works

  • Convenzione e Materialismo. Ed. Theoria, Rome 1986
  • Opportunisme, Cynisme et Peur. Ambivalence du Désenchantement Suivi de les Labyrinthes de la Langue. Editions de l'éclat, Paris-Combas 1991
  • Mondanità. L'idea di "Mondo" tra Esperienza Sensibile e Sfera Pubblica. Ed. Manifestolibri, Rome 1994
  • Parole con parole. Poteri e Limiti del Linguaggio. Donzelli, Rome 1995
  • in: Paolo Virno, Michael Hardt (Eds.): Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1996:
    • The Ambivalence of Disenchantment, pp. 17-18
    • Virtuosity and Revolution. The Political Theory of Exodus, 189-209
    • Do You Remember Counterrevolution ?, pages 241-259
  • Thomas Atzert (eds.), Toni Negri, Maurizio Lazzarato , Paolo Virno: Wandering producers. Immaterial labor and subversion , foreword by Yann Moulier Boutang , ID-Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89408-075-2
  • Il Ricordo del Presente. Saggio sul Tempo Storico. Bollati Boringhieri, Turin 1999
  • Virtuosismo y revolución. La acción política en la era del desencanto. Traficantes de Sueños, Madrid 2003
  • Gramática de la multitud. Para un análisis de las formas de vida contemporáneas. Traficantes de Sueños, Madrid 2003
    • Introduction (pdf)
    • English edition: A Grammar of the Multitude. For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life. Semiotext [e], New York 2004
    • German edition: Grammar of the Multitude. Investigations into current forms of life , from the Italian by Thomas Atzert, afterword by Jost Müller, ID-Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89408-092-2
    • German edition: Grammar of the Multitude. Public, intellect and work as forms of life , with appendix Paolo Virno: Die Engel und der General Intellect , translated from Italian by Klaus Neundlinger, edited and introduced by Klaus Neundlinger and Gerald Raunig, Turia + Kant, Vienna 2005. Reprint 2019, ISBN 978- 3-85132-956-8 .
  • Cuando el verbo se hace carne. Lenguaje y naturaleza humanas. Traficantes de Sueños, Madrid 2005
  • Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation. Semiotext [e], Los Angeles 2008 (Foreign Agents Series)
  • L'idea di mondo. Intelletto pubblico e uso della vita. Quodlibet, Macerata 2015, ISBN 9788874627660 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Virno, Paolo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian philosopher, semiotic and political activist
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Naples