Dal pessimismo agonistico al materialismo militante Tra Leopardi e Sebastiano Timpanaro

This contribution aims to focus on the theme of thinking matter within the anthropology of Giacomo Leopardi. The purpose is to discuss the recovery made by Sebastiano Timpanaro in the late twentieth century, with the declared intent of engaging in dialogue between the materialistic and hedonistic tradition, which from the eighteenth century permeates the reflections of the poet, and the Marxist tradition. Reason, matter, and body are concepts that intertwine throughout Leopardi’s philosophical elaboration, culminating in a materialist conclusion. To this end, the critical turning points in Leopardi’s thought, with particular attention to the Zibaldone and Operette morali, as well as the philosophical background of this reflection, will be examined. Sebastiano Timpanaro’s intellectual endeavor to recover Leopardi’s anthropology had the precise aim of gaining a coherent conception of materialism, particularly in those areas where, according to him, Marxism fell short. Not to present the image of Leopardi as a precursor to Marxism, but rather to respond to the urgency of updating Leopardi’s thought to rediscover, in a Marxist key, the themes of pleasure and pain within a coherent materialist framework. The goal of this contribution is to verify the use of central Leopardian concepts by Sebastiano Timpanaro in order to construct a philosophical proposal of militant materialism. In particular, the similarities and differences between Leopardi’s conception and the elaboration of the concept of thinking matter within a materialistic anthropology will be evaluated in comparison to that proposed by Engels in Dialectics of Nature.