Reading and Performing: Interpreting Reality According to Simone Weil and Luigi Pareyson

This contribution aims to shed light on two hermeneutical perspectives of the twentieth century which, although developed in different contexts and through distinct languages, share not only certain conceptual affinities but are both grounded in a relational ontological framework. The first is the notion of reading (notion de lecture) elaborated by the French thinker Simone Weil (1909–1943), particularly during her time in Marseille (1940–1942); the second is the idea of reading as “performance” or “execution” (esecuzione) proposed by the Italian philosopher Luigi Pareyson (1918–1991) within the framework of his aesthetic theory of formatività (1954). The aim of this study is, first, to outline the essential features of both perspectives and resonances and, subsequently, to highlight their points of convergence and original features. The goal, however, is not to propose a systematic comparison between the two authors, but rather to show the theoretical fruitfulness of a dialogue between Weil’s and Pareyson’s reflections on aesthetics and hermeneutics, from which a profile of “renewed thought” in a broad sense can emerge, opening up to a fruitful inter- and trans-disciplinary dialogue rooted in the search for truth as a shared horizon.