10.13125/CH/4250
That swing of the pendulum, with which our time was represented, (Heller 1990), and which either moves forwards denying "what has been" or nostalgically back to the past and therefore eager to recover what has been broken, seems to perpetuate itself in the most sensitive beings. When exhausted by the endless and incessant struggle between what is fleeting and what remains, they take refuge in the  kingdom  of "high culture" (Heller 1999) in order to find a stable home in which to shelter themselves from the uncertainty of these continuous oscillations (Costanzo 2007)...
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Paola Ricci Sindoni
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Critical Hermeneutics
Editors' Introduction
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Paola Ricci Sindoni
2020/08/04
10.13125/CH/4250
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urn:nbn:it:unica-26136
Editors' Introduction
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Critical Hermeneutics, special (2020)
Biannual International Journal of Philosophy
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ISSN 2533-1825 (on line); DOI 10.13125/CH/4250




                            Editors’ Introduction




That swing of the pendulum, with which our time was represented,
(Heller 1990), and which either moves forwards denying "what has
been" or nostalgically back to the past and therefore eager to recover
what has been broken, seems to perpetuate itself in the most sensi-
tive beings. When exhausted by the endless and incessant struggle
between what is fleeting and what remains, they take refuge in the
kingdom       of "high culture" (Heller 1999) in order to find a stable
home in which to shelter themselves from the uncertainty of these
continuous oscillations (Costanzo 2007). They feel sheltered because
they sense the familiarity and affinity between this kingdom and their
soul; beyond the fracture and dissonance of post-modernity, they feel
they are part of a line of continuity such as that between the new and
past generations. In a sense, this kingdom is what remains and en-
dures, either as an epitaph or as a warning; as an epitaph in taking
leave of a bygone time, it represents the desires and moments that
now seem distant; as a warning, in investigating the line between
what is and what should be, it expresses dissent towards what sur-
rounds us, to yearn for the "best" that is yet to come. And this yearn-
ing strikes and resounds loudly when the voice of the writer- of the
charismatic philosopher, admonishes and enchants. For this reason,
when      this voice disappears, there is a great silence. It is Maurice
Blanchot who solemnly says: “this is what is said when a writer dies:
a voice has fallen silent, a way of thinking has disappeared. What a
silence then if no one else spoke in that exalted way that is the lan-
guage of texts that come accompanied by the rumour of their reputa-
Editors’ Introduction




tion. Think about it” (Blanchot 1969: 219). A year after the sudden
death of Ágnes Heller, one warm carefree summer day on her be-
loved lake Balaton, it is still impossible to skim through the pages of
her books- works that she left us and that accompany us today as
they did yesterday, without the desire to break that deafening si-
lence. How then can we not think of her open and unadorned smile,
of her witty and quick-to-respond mind, of her cheerful voice and of
the habit of repeating aloud and at every step what was done the
night or the year before, all of which accompanies what lingers in our
memories with impressions of the present. It was a way to memorize
and share memories with those around her; a way to express her at-
tention and care aloud to those who showed the same respect in lis-
tening and conversing. In one of her interviews she had said: if every
thought must enter the sphere of existence and history in order not
to remain sterile and abstract, then as Nietzsche writes, every philos-
ophy is basically an "autobiography", in that a "philosopher writes
books representing autobiographical experiences written from various
points of view" (Heller 2012: 11). Her books are points of view, im-
pressions, never epitaphs - even when she steps back from Marxism
and the leftist militants, even before the fall of the Berlin wall; they
are bridges she extends to the world, bridges to cross – debating and
reasoning with her beloved philosophers, such as Kierkegaard, Plato,
Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger - posi-
tioning her feet on the ground, to shed light on what surrounds us
and leave a visible sign of her footsteps. Her belief is that to philoso-
phize means to act with awareness and responsibility in the world, to
orientate oneself and find a compass with which to understand the
events and the complex world of "human affairs". Therefore, her
works were written, out of a     desire to be present and not remain
fearful and indifferent.




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                                            Critical Hermeneutics, special (2020)




    Her books are lucid representations-expressions of that civic
courage which is «capable of saying no to the power of oppression in
whatever way it appears, in visible authoritarian or in invisible dem-
ocratic forms» (Mario Tronti); they are reflections for the pleasure of
being part of a larger community, a community of thought and affec-
tions with a cosmopolitan aspiration. She herself had been for a long
time, not only Hungarian, not only Australian, not only American, but
citizen of the world. It is from this supranational home, that she cap-
tures the spark in European and American youth which she uses to
lecture and debate; the spark which lifts the gaze from the contingent
towards that realm which each of us should aspire and find access to
as if to enter a new and even more crowded Platonic symposium
(Francesca Brezzi).
    The intellectual path of Ágnes Heller is truly complex to outline in
a nutshell, not only because it is intertwined with the shattering ex-
periences of the European twentieth century - from the Shoah to the
Gulag, from the spring of '56 to the fall of the Berlin wall up to
Orban's politics (which she publicly attacked and for which she was
again banned, as she had been in the sixties) - but also for the many
interests that crossed her thinking: from ethics, to the philosophy of
history, to aesthetics, to psychoanalysis ...
    These were the themes and interests she used as a springboard
to relaunch and revive debate. I still remember the week in Turin, the
one in which she "discovered", through the long discussion with many
young students who surrounded her curiously, that her thought had
taken Hegelian-shape in a "system"- pursuing the trajectory of ques-
tions and answers which had accompanied her in the various mo-
ments of her entire existence: apprenticeship, dialogue, construction
and intervention, wandering.
    During this week as well as at the events organized by Laura
Boella in Milan, and     Paola Ricci Sindoni and Francesca Brezzi in



                                                                              III
Editors’ Introduction




Rome, it was striking to see her tireless energy for the curiosity of
the students, her inexhaustible passion for walking in the city, and for
places of art. She is a philosopher who has always sought the "truth"
or rather the rational understanding of issues and events in a shared
vision of interpretations and explanations and in which each guest or
participant was made to feel      like a guest- welcomed because they
were «aware of the right and the duty to think autonomously» (Laura
Tundo), a conviction she had sensed to be the most precious legacy
of Kant and of the teachings of her father, Pal Heller.
      For that matter, Vittoria Franco's interview book, A life for auton-
omy and freedom, reveals that the tension towards the autonomy of
judgment which she speaks of in her texts is part of the character
that always distinguished her as a child; and it is what she recognizes
her continuity with in two central figures of her existence: her
grandmother, Sofie Heller, «one of the first women to have access to
education in the late nineteenth century Vienna» (Heller 2019) who
she dedicates some letters to in the third volume of An Ethics of Per-
sonality; and her father Pál Heller, who she continues to dialogue
with throughout her entire life, and whose exemplary expression "a
sinking ship mustn't be abandoned" she owes her ethics of personali-
ty to (Paola Ricci Sindoni). Hers is an ethics which makes an existen-
tial choice for goodness in which she finds the resources not only to
defeat evil, but also the banality of existence - understood as what
prevents the leap into exception and singularity; and the lack of at-
traction to the good that the other represents (Vittoria Franco and
Michele Sità). After all, Agi herself found, in the bonds created with
her community of friends and colleagues - of affections and affinities
- (on the model of the amcha which Emil Fackenheim speaks of), the
strength to survive and to be reborn in every place and temporal
abode (See Heller 2019). She found the reasons for the deep sense of
responsibility towards the historical context and the gratitude for the



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ties of friendships which accompanied her from place to place, even
when they ended. She had always felt reluctant and uncomfortable
to speak of those Jewish ties, as did her great friend Jack Derrida
(Derrida 2005).
    Only in these last few years did she gain the courage to treat this
theme, albeit with dignified respect for those who are no longer with
us, which prevented her from falling into the cliché of the victim and
survivor. When grief begins to prevail, even thinking risks being less
clear and prolific. It gives way to feelings of resentment towards what
others have, and shame for what others represent. Such a feeling
would risk self-closure in a sterile individualism unless there was the
courage to face the other and detect the strength in his gaze to call
oneself into question, and start over. In this sense, Heller's long jour-
ney was marked by curiosity but also by the choice “in the direction
of what is right and good”: a beauty understood as the search for a
place to cling to for self-balance and resistance to the many dystopic
narrations of the post-truth, and of the end of the great narrations;
and a good as the necessity to know how to choose what does not
harm the other. It is an existential choice towards a good which re-
sists changes in history, and the end of the great ideologies. In the
nostalgia of what has been lost, as in the imagined worlds of the uto-
pias (Laura Tundo and Giovanna Costanzo), it finds a resource to
avoid succumbing to the fatalism and suggestions of the liquid hyper-
connective world.
    This collection of essays takes shape following the chance day
dedicated to the thought of Heller, The utopia of conversation, which
had been planned and organized by the “Cenacolo Tommaso Moro”
and the thinker herself, on October 17th, 2019 in Rome at Palazzo Al-
tieri in cooperation with Antonio Casu, Francesca Brezzi, Paola Ricci
Sindoni, Laura Boella, Giovanna Costanzo, Cristina Guarnieri, and
Mario Tronti. Her unexpected death made the day vibrate with a so-



                                                                               V
Editors’ Introduction




lemnity and inestimable value, which was also shared by the visibly
moved public present at the event.
      Vittoria Franco, Michele Sità, Laura Tundo, Andrea Vestrucci
joined this last group by making the collection of essays, which come
out on the occasion of the Hungarian thinker’s first anniversary, even
more precious and an occasion to show their affection and esteem, to
glimpse the vitality of a way of thinking which continues to be current
if it is able to intercept the voices of men and women and converse
with different generations.
      Thus, what emerged was the face of a radical thinker for the
strength she had not to succumb to the sirens of the seductions and
contradictions of our time (Mario Tronti). In the profound ties with Pal
she also finds the reasons for living a life of righteousness at all costs
and in all contexts in the name of «the duty not to give in to the sta-
tus quo, well-aware that the world needs to change and be re-
deemed» (Paola Ricci Sindoni). By cultivating Kant and Kierkegaard,
her thinking found the reasons for making an existential choice (like
in Vittoria Franco and Michele Sità's essays); and in the «need for a
concrete and rational utopia»- that aspiration to good and truth
(Laura Tundo), which is able to drive the utopic imagination that
saves the world from the nudity of its contingency (Costanzo).
      Hers is a ”chorus of voices which stages a utopia, an oasis of re-
spect and spirit of opposition to the regime of mass media and politi-
cal communication in which we find ourselves living” (Laura Boella).
It is a "utopia of conversation" if each of us is invited to participate as
a member of humanity, which is such as long as it is not reduced to
"an empty slogan", and if as a member we feel welcomed because
everyone is the same and different (Francesca Brezzi). Even though
this humanity perceives the harshness of reality, it is able to leave
“concrete impressions of shared experiences”.




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                                           Critical Hermeneutics, special (2020)




    And thanks to these experiences which were and can be shared
with other readers and scholars, it is impossible not to express an
endless debt of gratitude and recognition, as Andrea Vestrucci does in
the ideal letter he writes her, questioning how it is possible in the
contemporary world, to defend the reasons for philosophizing. It is a
conversation between many voices for one who was a virtuoso of
thought, great in her humility, “because alien to the forms of display
and vanity which often take hold of many pompous intellectuals”
(Paola Ricci Sindoni); and unique in the friendship she knew how to
cultivate with each and everyone.


    A special thanks to Antonio Casu, President of the national asso-
ciation “Il Cenacolo di Tommaso Moro” who organized the Conference
The utopia of conversation and to the scholars and students of the
Universities of Milan, Pisa, Siena, Rome, Salento, Messina, Budapest
and Geneva.


                                                      Giovanna Costanzo
                                                       Paola Ricci Sindoni




References
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Costanzo (2007). Ágnes Heller. Costruire il bene. Una teoria etico-
politica della giustizia. Roma: Studium
Derrida, J. (2005). Abramo, l’altro. Napoli: Cronopio
Heller, Á. (1990). Can Modernity Survive?. Cambrige: Polity press



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Editors’ Introduction




Heller, Á. (1990). Oltre la giustizia. Bologna: Il Mulino
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