“Dare” to regain confidence. The philosopher Nodari explains why “the salvation of thought is in the body”

Hear, hear the Up Patriots to Arms of Western philosophy: Thought needs Bodies. No more opposition between res cogitans and res extensa, but a salvific union to face the fragility of the human condition in the transience of Time and to establish itself as an adult presence in the era that the thinker Byung-Chul Han defines as “non-things”. Before it gets too late, we must “dare” to break the ranks between smart working refugees and TV series addicts, between Glovo metics and scooter hipsters.

“Dare” is the key word of the ‘Philosophers along the Oglio’ festival, which celebrates its eighteenth edition this year from 5 June to 25 July in the usual nomadic formula, with which it will visit 23 Bergamo and Brescia municipalities, giving voice to 29 thinkers on the river’s course, from the municipality of Barbariga to that of Villachiara.

The founder and animator of the review is the philosopher from Brescia Francesca Nodari, pupil of Bernhard Casper and prolific author inspired by Lévinas. You say: “Dare to think, dare to know, dare to decide, dare to overcome the laziness that makes the subjects of the ‘happycracy’ minors forever”.

Why this motto this year?
It is not an invitation to hubris but a necessity: that of regaining faith in the future. “Dare” is also a positive and auspicious imperative in the territories that have paid the most tribute to the Covid pandemic and feel a great desire to go back to dreaming, with the awareness of succeeding when one commits oneself to succeed.

Soul and body?
We must become aware that we are a psychophysical unit: only the sense of this fragility drives us to make use of the limited time we have, to become active protagonists of our lives together with others. We are body but also time. The notions of corporality, temporality and otherness constitute the virtuous circle from which we risk deviating, because today
breathe more solitude than before, human relationships are deteriorating, avatars steal space from life. You return from the virtual world to the real world as half knights. The loneliness of the young people who meet at the crossroads is striking and instead of talking to each other they send each other whatsapp, while there would be a need for hugs and pats on the back.

Presence is detached from corporeity even in working relationships.
With Covid we have become accustomed to the use of calls and connection platforms, blessed in that situation but dangerous now. In a call, I struggle to understand where the others are looking, even the timbre of the voice changes and the change in interaction and interlocution affects important decision-making skills. Corporality is irreplaceable.

The very rapid development of artificial intelligence does not favor his auspices.
It is a process that cannot be blocked, but should at least be regulated to avoid domination by technocracy. We should clearly establish the boundary between human beings and these new devils. I deliberately use an expression that makes me sound old-fashioned, because in this case I feel honored to be. We must not demonize the technique but
not even give way. It is necessary to practice the right Aristotelian middle ground and understand from now on what the outcomes of progress can be.

Byung-Chul Han points out that artificial intelligence lacks the affective and analogical dimension and that “deep emotion” that big data does not bring with it. Is the corporeality that the machine lacks a way of salvation?
Digital natives must be prevented from remaining at the mercy of a ChatGPT that even writes their homework for them, relegating them to a system that ensnares them and reduces them to ignorant, lonely and dependent people. Let us remember that we are men inhabited by passion, with the awareness of living in a time that poses very important ethical challenges: from immigration to climate change, these are issues that involve man in his entire bodily being, with his need for emotions and expression . Today it seems to me that many people are paralyzed by fear: of making mistakes, of exposing themselves, of growing, of not conforming to a thought. It’s not easy to get out of the pack. Every choice involves his own risks: they must be faced without the arrogance of giving final answers. Philosophy has always offered penultimate answers.

How did she become a philosopher?
In middle school I already imagined this road. One day I went to the library and was curious about ‘The Glass Bead Game’ by Hermann Hesse. I took it, but the manager told me to put it away as I wouldn’t get it. I replied that I didn’t pretend to understand everything, I was satisfied with even a little. I dared. In one’s own small way one tries, with fear and trembling, to answer the big questions. Hegel says that philosophy is to think about one’s time, but also, I would add, one’s life.

What links your philosophical review to the Oglio river?
I was born in the province of Brescia and I love to call this river our old man, as if to personify it. I believe there is a duty to give back to these lands which are so fertile, but sometimes sterile from a cultural point of view. With satisfaction: Casper was amazed that thirty or forty people attended philosophy festivals in Germany, while here he found up to a thousand listening to him in religious silence. In the maximum pluralism of thought, names, looks and skills.