Abstract
This paper brings together the Italian Existentialist author Alberto Moravia’s novel Boredom and Hegel’s account of empirical cognition from the Philosophy of Spirit. I use analysis of Moravia’s text as a jum** off point for arguing that Hegel’s theory of empirical cognition offers a proto-existentialist model for understanding both the complex way in which our political lives intersect with our perceptual lives and the special role that works of imaginative fiction play in bringing this relationship to light. In Boredom, main character Dino is afflicted with a chronic case of the titular condition, which he describes as “a malady affecting external objects and consisting of a withering process; an almost instantaneous loss of vitality.” Using a Hegelian lens, I argue that, in Dino’s case, boredom is not simply a contingent psychological situation; rather, this affect describes a structure of mental intentionality, a propositional attitude, that reflects the political circumstances of 1960s post-Fascist Italy in which he is embedded. I conclude with a discussion of Hegel’s account of imagination that shows how Hegel’s text provides a technical compliment to Moravia’s literary depiction of the political character of perception.
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Notes
- 1.
See especially Franco Berardi, The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy, (Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), 2009).
- 2.
I use ‘idealist’ in a narrow sense here to refer to Kantian and post-Kantian idealisms that view apperceptive unity to be of central philosophical importance.
- 3.
Due in large part to thinkers like Stanley Cavell, Martha Nussbaum, and Bernard Williams in a more general context, and thinkers like Axel Honneth and Robert Pippin in the more specifically Hegelian context.
- 4.
Alberto Moravia, Boredom (New York: New York Review, 2005). Cited henceforth as [B].
- 5.
René Descartes, Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. Donald Cress, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1998), p. 69.
- 6.
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, trans. Benson Mates, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), I. 4.
- 7.
It is a point of contention in the literature whether or not someone in this condition ought properly to be described as holding a belief. Burnyeat (1980) and Barnes (1982) argue against, Fine (2000) argues in favor. For my purposes, I follow Fine. See Jonathan Barnes, “The Beliefs of a Pyrrhonist”, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, N.S. 28: 1–29 (1982); Myles Burnyeat, “Can the Sceptic Live His Scepticism?”, in M. Schofield, M. F. Burnyeat, and J. Barnes (eds.), Doubt and Dogmatism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 20–53; and Gail Fine, “Sceptical Dogmata: Outlines of Pyrrhonism I 13”, Methexis 12: 81–105 (2000).
- 8.
These two sentences respectively exemplify two versions of the paradox, the omissive and the commissive. The distinction is worth noting but will not concern us here.
- 9.
Quoted in Mitchell Green and John Williams, Moore’s Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality, and the First Person. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007), p. 3. My emphases.
- 10.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology: Volume I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 92, §478.
- 11.
Alberto Moravia, Man as an End (London: Secker & Warburg, 1965), p. 167.
- 12.
Moravia, Man as End, p. 9.
- 13.
Moravia, Man as End, p. 12.
- 14.
George Talbot, “Alberto Moravia and Italian Fascism: Censorship, Racism and Le ambizioni sbagliate” in Modern Italy, 11:2, 127–145, 2006.
- 15.
See David Gutherz, Dissertation Draft, (University of Chicago, 2019).
- 16.
Berardi, The Soul at Work, pp. 109–10.
- 17.
More than twenty of Moravia’s novels were adapted as feature-length films. Most famous among these adaptations are Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970, based on Moravia’s 1951 Il conformista) and Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963, based on Moravia’s 1954 Il desprezza).
- 18.
Axel Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action” in The Fragmented World of the Social: Essays in Social and Political Philosophy (New York: SUNY Press, 1995), p. 19.
- 19.
Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action”, p. 20.
- 20.
All citations from G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Mind: Being Part Three of the “Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences” (1830), trans. William Wallace (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003). Henceforth cited as [PhilS]. German versions from http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Hegel,+Georg+Wilhelm+Friedrich/Enzyklop%C3%A4die+der+philosophischen+Wissenschaften+im+Grundrisse/Dritter+Teil%3A+Die+Philosophie+des+Geistes [Accessed March, 2023].
- 21.
For an overview of the positions involved, see Luca Corti, “Hegel’s Later Theory of Cognition: An Additive or Transformative Model?”, Hegel Bulletin, 43/2, 167–193 (2021).
- 22.
My translation.
- 23.
My translation („freies Verknüpfen und Subsumieren dieses Vorrats unter den ihr eigentümlichen Inhalt“).
- 24.
G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977). Cited as [PhS].
- 25.
Hegel, G. W. F.. The Encyclopaedia Logic, with the Zusätze: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences with the Zusätze. Ed. Théodore F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H. S. Harris (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1991). Cited as [EL].
References
Barnes, Jonathan. “The Beliefs of a Pyrrhonist”, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, N.S. 28: 1–29, 1982. Reprinted in Burnyeat and Frede 1997: 58–91.
Berardi, Franco. The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), 2009.
Burnyeat, M. F. “Can the Sceptic Live His Scepticism?” in M. Schofield, M. F. Burnyeat, and J. Barnes (eds.), Doubt and Dogmatism, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 20–53, 1980. Reprinted in Burnyeat and Frede 1997: 25–57.
Corti, Luca. “Hegel’s Later Theory of Cognition: An Additive or Transformative Model?”, Hegel Bulletin, 43/2, 167–193, 2021.
Descartes, René. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. Donald Cress, Indiannapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1998.
Fine, Gail. “Sceptical Dogmata: Outlines of Pyrrhonism I 13”, Methexis 12: 81–105, 2000.
Gutherz, David. Dissertation Draft, 2019.
Green, Mitchell S.., & Williams, J. N. Moore’s Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality, and the First Person. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007.
Hegel, G. W. F. The Encyclopaedia Logic, with the Zusätze: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences with the Zusätze. Ed. Théodore F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H. S. Harris. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1991.
———.. The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
———.. The Phenomenology of Spirit, . Philosophy of Mind: Being Part Three of the “Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences” (1830), trans. William Wallace, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.
Honneth, Axel. The Fragmented World of the Social: Essays in Social and Political Philosophy, New York: SUNY Press, 1995.
Moravia, Alberto. Boredom. New York: New York Review, 2005.
———. Man as End, London: Secker & Warburg, 1965.
Sextus Empricus. Outlines of Pyrrhonism, trans. Benson Mates, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Talbot, George. “Alberto Moravia and Italian Fascism: Censorship, Racism and Le ambizioni sbagliate”, Modern Italy, 11:2, 127-145, 2006.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology: Volume I, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
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Little, E.S. (2024). Boredom as a Propositional Attitude: Reading Alberto Moravia with Hegel. In: Hagberg, G.L. (eds) Fictional Worlds and the Political Imagination. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52026-6_6
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