Title:  Luigi Pareyson, Existence, Interpretation, Freedom Author:  Paolo Diego Bubbio, ed. Translated by Anna Mattei Series: Contemporary European Cultural Studies Imprint:  The Davies Group, Publishers soft cover 280 pp. USD  26.00 ISBN 978-1934542187 December  2009 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. The editor of this anthology has carefully selected a variety of papers, articles and book chapters in order to provide the Anglophone reader with a valuable reconstruction of Luigi Pareyson’s philosophical itinerary: his early writings on Existentialism; his theory of interpretation, which is as important as those of Gadamer and Ricoeur and which opened a ‘third way’ to hermeneutics; and his last meditations on the relationship between evil, freedom and God. Existence, ideology, neopositivism, technique, interpretation, religion: all these fundamental questions are analyzed in the writings included in this book. A detailed critical introduction introduces Pareyson’s biography, his cultural background and his philosophy, and a set of notes makes the text more accessible. Contents Part 1. Existence Existence and Existentialism The unity of philosophy The existential nature of ethics Part II. Knowledge Intuition as interpretation Interpretation as coincidence of thing and image Knowledge of things and persons as interpretation Knowledge of things by persons Art: performance and interpretation Part III. Truth, Interpretation and the Critique of Ideology Truth and history Philosophy and ideology Originarity of interpretation Thought without truth Critique of ideology Part IV. Ontology of Freedom Hermeneutics and tragic thought Revelatory nature of myth Philosophical reflection on religious experience Interpretation of myth as hermeneutics of religious consciousness Philosophy of freedom Suffering and faith Reviews “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 Author/Editor Paolo Diego Bubbio, Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney and Visiting Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Turin. He is the author of Il sacrificio intellettuale: René Girard e la filosofia della religione [The Intellectual Sacrifice: René Girard and the Philosophy of Religion], Torino, Il Quadrante, 1999, e Il sacrificio: La ragione e il suo altrove [Sacrifice: Reason and its Other], Roma, Città Nuova, 2004 and recently “The Sacrifice of the Overman as an Expression of the Will to Power” in Nietzsche, Power and Politics, ed. H. Siemens and V. Roodt (Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008) and “Hegel and Solger: Privation and Negation”, in International Journal of Philosophical Studies 17 (2009).