Sogguardando il nulla. L'enigma della negazione nel pensiero di Emanuele Severino.

Severino’s philosophical thought is, nowadays, one of the most impressive and debatable speculative itinerary in the maze of negativity: an authentic itinerarium mentis in nihilo. By the reading of his basic-thesis – the parmenidian denial of change, the assertion of the eternity of everything, and the “joy” of being – Severino’s system might be condescendingly estimated as a form of irenicism; despite that, the italian thinker achieves their own speculative outcome through a dense and suffered struggle with some of the most decisive issues of the classical thought: the structure of becoming, the statute of the contradiction, as well as the unresolved issue of not-being. The fourth chapter of his masterpiece, La struttura originaria, is an example of this kind of gigantomachia; in fact, contrarily to the apparent serenity of the logical rigor adduced, the resolution of not-being’s problem requires the difficult experience of diaporein: which is the capacity to go beyond the unthinkable but staying and living inside it. In this context, Aristotle is the philosopher that more than others inspires Severino’s speculative itinerary. Particularly because of his discussion of the bebaiotate arche. Infact the principle of Non-contradiction allows us to save the being from every refutation, but only exposing it to the momentary chiaroscuro of its negation. This contribution is therefore focused on the essential connection between eternity’s foundation and eternity’s refusal in E. Severino’s philosophical thought. The meaning of elenchos is clearly shown from the sixth paragraph of his Ritornare a Parmenide as an inspection of the self-annihilation of any denial of the incontrovertible truth. However: how can it be explained that the rejection is a “self-refutation”? Which conceptual elements are involved in the “self-restrain” maneuver? Which “enigma” stays hidden in the deaf powerlessness of negativity? Our critic work is aimed to address and answer the aforementioned questions.