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An essay on negation : for a linguistic anthropology / Paolo Virno ; translated by Lorenzo Chiesa.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Virno, Paolo, 1952- author.
- Series:
- Italian list
- The Italian list
- Standardized Title:
- Saggio sulla negazione. English
- Language:
- English
- Italian
- Subjects (All):
- Language and languages--Philosophy.
- Language and languages.
- Grammar, Comparative and general--Negatives.
- Grammar, Comparative and general.
- Negation (Logic).
- Physical Description:
- 250 pages ; 23 cm
- Other Title:
- Subtitle on dust jacket: Towards a linguistic anthropology
- Place of Publication:
- London ; Calcutta : Seagull Books, 2018.
- Language Note:
- Translated from the Italian.
- Summary:
- In Essay on Negation, Paol Virno argues that not's importance is perhaps comparable only to that of money--that is, the universality of exchange. Negation is what separates verbal thought from silent cognitive operations, such as feelings and mental images. Speaking about what is not happening here and now, or about properties that are not referable to a given object, the human animal deactivates its original neuronal empathy, which is prelinguistic; it distances itself from the prescriptions of its own instinctual endowment and accesses a higher sociality, negotiated and unstable, which establishes the public sphere. In fact, the speaking animal soon learns that the negative statement does not amount to the linguistic double of unpleasant realities or destructive emotions: while it rejects them, negation also names them and thus includes them in social life. Virno sees negation as a crucial effect of civilization, one that is, however, also always exposed to further regressions. Taking his cue from a humble word, the author is capable of unfolding the unexpected phenomenology of the negating consciousness.
- Contents:
- Prologue: mirror neurons and the faculty of negation
- The money of language
- The meaning of 'meaning'
- On Plato's Sophist
- Negation and affects.
- Notes:
- "Originally published as Paolo Virno, Saggio sulla negazione. per una antropologia linguistica"--Title page verso.
- Includes bibliographical references.
- ISBN:
- 9780857424389
- 0857424386
- 9781803093635
- 1803093633
- OCLC:
- 1399163867
- Publisher Number:
- 90100667140
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