Luigi Pareyson (1918-1991) was a seminal Italian philosopher. As a professor at the University of Turin he had many subsequently famous students, including Gianni Vattimo and Umberto Eco. The author of more than twenty ground-breaking books, Pareyson’s work first focused on Existentialism and then on the notion of interpretation. Together with Gadamer and Ricoeur, he can be considered one of the fathers of Hermeneutics This anthology represents the first English translation of his writings.

"In these carefully selected and grouped essays one encounters a singular philosophical voice engaged in that century-long conversation making up the hermeneutic approach to philosophy. This collection should give to Luigi Pareyson the place he deserves in the Anglophone world alongside hitherto better-known authors from continental Europe like Gadamer, Ricoeur and Vattimo. It is an excellent introduction to this seminal thinker and to his attempts to revitalize a philosophical tradition that has found itself simultaneously freed and threatened in the modern world."

— Paul Redding, The University of Sydney

"Luigi Pareyson is one of the most distinctive and influential figures in twentieth-century Italian philosophy. His creative and innovative contributions to both existentialist thought as well as hermeneutics deserve comparison with the work of Heidegger and Gadamer…. The publication of this selection from Pareyson’s writings is an especially welcome and long-overdue development. Not only does it shed important light on the background to contemporary Italian thought, including that of two of Pareyson’s most illustrious students, Gianni Vattimo and Umberto Eco, it also allows Pareyson’s own voice finally to be heard in English, providing a glimpse into a truly insightful and significant body of work.

— Jeff Malpas, University of Tasmania

"This collection of Luigi Pareyson’s writings shows that we have been living with a gap in the philosophical field, a gap that has now been filled thanks to Paolo Diego Bubbio. Pareyson emerges as a philosopher of existence and freedom, a philosopher willing to interpret both. He is one of the very few contemplative philosophers of the last century, someone in commerce with the great ancient traditions of philosophy, and one whose idea of "formativity" is as fecund as it has been unknown, until now."

— Kevin Hart, The University of Virginia

Three philosophers will be remembered as the greatest thinkers in the first generation of the theorists of Hermeneutics after Heidegger. The first is the German philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer. The second is the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. The third is the Italian philosopher Luigi Pareyson.

This book is meant to be the first step in bridging this gap, to introduce Pareyson to the English-speaking world. Together with the Series editors and publisher, I decided to edit a volume of selected writings rather than to translate one of Pareyson’s books. In this way, we believe, the importance of Pareyson’s thought is made more immediately apparent to the reader. This format also allows the presentation of Pareyson’s thought as a whole. The book includes writings from his major books, essays, articles and talks from his early works to his posthumous publications. My principal guideline was thus to present in one book Payerson’s main philosophical thesis in a coherent, organic manner, that would clearly reflect the evolution of his thought. Accordingly, I chose to present complete articles and book chapters, when they seemed to me fundamental to the evolution of Pareyson’s work. But at times I selected only a section or a passage, in order to retain their contribution to the flow and clarity of the entirety of the work, while avoiding repetition.

I belong to the first generation of Italian students of philosophy who could not have attended Pareyson’s lectures (I started my undergraduate studies at the University of Turin in 1993 while Pareyson retired in 1990 and died in 1991). Nevertheless, his thought was present in the teachings of several lecturers for whom his reflection has clearly been a point of reference. A teenager, at the beginning of his course of studies in philosophy, is usually driven by a somewhat romantic idea of the discipline, by an anxiety to find answers. At first, the philosophical rigor to which the student is rightly subjected can sometimes cause frustration. Yet, I remember that this feeling dispelled when I attended lectures that addressed Pareyson’s thought.⁴ I found in that thought, together with an uncompromising philosophical rigor, a determined pursuit of answers to fundamental questions of existence. The enthusiasm I experienced in those lectures was, at least partly, still ingenuous. Time and deeper inquiries into Pareyson’s thought were to change that enthusiasm, not by diminishing it, but rather by making it more intense. This book is also intended to be my personal tribute to this great philosopher, in the hope that his thought shall soon receive the attention it deserves in the Anglophone world.

Luigi Pareyson was born on February 4, 1918 in Piasco, a small village near Cuneo, in Piedmont (North-Western Italy).⁵ Both of his parents (his father Leone Pareyson and his mother Leontina Coccoz) were natives of Val d’Aosta. His mother gave him a strict catholic education. In 1923 his family moved to Turin. In 1935 he matriculated from the University of Turin where he attended the lectures of Gioele Solari, Augusto Guzzo and Annibale Pastore.⁶ In 1936, during a short stay in Germany, he met Karl Jaspers and began reading the works of Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger. In 1937 he went to Germany again, and visited Heidelberg, Strasbourg, Freiburg and Munich. On September 21 he was received by Martin Heidegger. In 1938 he published his first paper, Notes on Philosophy of Existence, in the "Giornale critico della filosofia italiana", directed by Giovanni Gentile.⁷ In August and September he went on a journey through France. In Paris, he met Gabriel Marcel, Louis Lavelle and René Le Senne.

On June 24, 1939 Pareyson graduated in philosophy with first class honors. His supervisor was Augusto Guzzo and the title of his thesis was Karl Jaspers and the philosophy of existence.⁸ From November that year, he was "assistente volontario" (voluntary assistant) at the University of Turin. During his visit to the National Library in Turin, he befriended Norberto Bobbio, the future famous Italian political philosopher.

From October 1940 to March 1944 Pareyson worked as a teacher of philosophy and history at the Liceo Classico "Silvio Pellico" of Cuneo. During this period, he gathered a few students to discuss antifascism. Later, he was one of the founders of the local cell of the antifascist movement Partito d’Azione.

In March 1943 he qualified as a university teacher and published Studies on Existentialism.⁹ This book was particularly striking due to the originality of the proposed philosophical perspective, at a time when Italian academic culture was still dominated by Neo-Idealism.

One year later, in March 1944, he was suspended from teaching at the Liceo of Cuneo because of his antifascism. Arrested by the political Office of the fascist Federation, he was detained and interrogated for several days. Subsequently, he took charge of the headquarters of the partisan formations of "Giustizia e Libertà", and coordinated the activities of the political and military Resistance around Cuneo. Pareyson was thus in Cuneo when it was liberated from the Nazi-fascist occupation on April 28, 1945.

From 1945 to 1951 he was professor of Aesthetics on an annual contract at the University of Turin. In 1948 he met Rosetta Schlesinger, a student of philosophy, who would become his wife. In 1949 he was one of the promoters of the "Congreso Nacional de Filosofìa" in Mendoza (Argentina) and met Hans-Georg Gadamer, with whom he established a good relationship. In 1950 he published two historiographical works, Aesthetics of German Idealism¹⁰ and Fichte,¹¹ and a theoretical book, Existence and Person.¹²

In 1951 he married Rosetta Schlesinger and became "professore ordinario" (full professor) of History of philosophy at the University of Pavia. In 1952 he became "professore ordinario" of Aesthetics at the University of Turin. In 1953 he managed the division that wrote on modern and contemporary philosophy for the Philosophical Encyclopedia edited by the Center of Christian philosophical studies of Gallarate. During this period he closely collaborated with his university assistants Gianni Vattimo and Valerio Verra. In 1954 he published Aesthetics. Theory of Formativity, offering a powerful alternative to Benedetto Croce’s aesthetics, which still dominated Italian academic culture at that time. During that year he was the supervisor of Umberto Eco, who graduated with the thesis The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas.¹³ In 1957 he was made an honorary member of the American Society for Aesthetics. In 1959 he was the supervisor of Gianni Vattimo, who graduated with the thesis The Concept of Doing in Aristotle.

In 1964 he succeeded his mentor Augusto Guzzo to the Chair of Theoretical Philosophy. Over the following years he was awarded several prizes, including the gold medal of the Italian Ministry of Public Education. In 1971 he published Truth and Interpretation,¹⁴ where he criticizes the very possibility of ideology or relativism.

In 1974 he began his last philosophical undertaking, the ontology of freedom, a meditation on the problems of evil and freedom. He spent his last seventeen years leading a quiet life, writing and teaching. On October 27, 1988 he gave his last lecture, Philosophy of Freedom,¹⁵ and became professor emeritus. On September 8, 1991 he died in Milan. His last unfinished work, Ontology of Freedom,¹⁶ would be published posthumously in 1995, edited by his students.