What does it mean to "seek" the essential? The Quotidiano Meeting met with Costantino Esposito, Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Aldo Moro in Bari, and Andrea Bellantone, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy at the Institut Catholique in Toulouse, shortly before the event in which they were featured last night at the Meeting.

Bellantone introduces the word "openness" as a response. "The key word is to remain open. The human being is an open window, not a monad!" Esposito clarifies: "The essential is something we believe we know, but it always eludes us because we are beings in search. Our posture in the world is a question." What denies this original position of questioning is nihilism, which Esposito sees in its most significant expression as the denial that there is any meaning in reality, and therefore that human beings must construct it, with the destructive outcomes that are evident to all. For Bellantone, "one of the forms of nihilism is not having questions, because there is no perceived need for them: we are hypnotized by spectacle, by the flow of information, by consumption. This prevents us from recognizing the question that we are."

But the question does not remain silent; it continues to knock at the doors of being, it constitutes us, and it reemerges against nihilism. "The question," Bellantone observes, "constantly demands answers from us. Reality constantly surpasses us; we must listen to it and to the other answers that have been and are being given by human beings." "Reality is the name of a relationship," Esposito clarifies. "Many times, we understand reality as something that is simply out there, but the being of reality precedes us; this means that reality always demands something from you."

According to Bellantone, nihilism can be overcome with "creativity": not as a product, but as a daily gesture in every area of life. Costantino explains that today "one of the impressions is that people no longer have anything to do and that creativity is reduced to a cultural product, whereas creativity is personal, it is daily." Crucial, according to Bellantone, are the spaces for reflection where the voice of the question can be heard. "Not to escape reality, but to return to it with greater awareness of who you are and what you are seeking." Costantino replies that he doesn’t want to lose anything, because even enjoying oneself, the Pascalian divertissement, carries within it the redemption from nihilism: in fact, when nothing satisfies, the question of the essential reemerges with force. "It’s the shock of return," observes Bellantone. Esposito concludes, "which leads to digging within oneself to feel the question of the heart that exists."

Gianni Mereghetti