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Emanuele Severino: On The Presence of Absent Things
Was there ever a time this essay didn’t exist?
Is the past still present? In memory, yes, at least to some extent (possibly a very small one), but beyond that, does it still literally exist? Most people would say no. Even in spiritual circles it is common to hear that only the present exists and the past and future are mere ideas.
Yet according to the late contemporary Italian philosopher Emanuele Severino this is a mistake: the past and future are just as real as the present, and eternally so. Severino, little known in North America, passed away on Jan 17 2020 at the age of 90. He was well known in Italian philosophical circles for arguing that every moment is eternal and neither the past nor the future are nothingness, but rather exist now and forever in the radiant mansion of being.
“The Whole rejoices because its completeness is not perishable, but eternal. This eternity is the foundation of all joy. But all is eternal. All, in the most intense and richest of senses: each of the things and each form, appearance, state, gesture, shadow, mention, startle, relation of theirs. Each of the things and their staying all together gathered within the Whole.”
This doctrine, which asserts, in a sense, the presence of all absent things, is in line with some interpretations of modern…
