COME SI PENSA IL CORPO? FILOSOFIA, TEATRO, RAPPRESENTAZIONE

In the history of culture, body and thought have often been polar opposites. Yet their interaction proves to be a powerful resource: the body serves as an instrument of thought and, conversely, thought cannot but act in bodies. In the symbolic grammar of theatre, these processes find a privileged field for experi- mentation. Far from being an obstacle that the res cogitans must overcome in order to reach its truth, the body on stage is what thought sinks into in order to discover new categories. Believing that the interplay between philosophical practice and theatrical knowledge constitutes a highly fertile field of research, the papers collected in this issue of the Giornale Critico di Storia delle Idee aim to look at the dualisms thought-body, philosophy-theatre, theory-practice from a particular point of view: not that of scholars studying theatre extrinsically and intellec- tually, but that of the aesthetics emerging within the folds of the stage itself. What remains largely unthought are neither the theories describing a prac- tice a priori, nor the practices identified as illustrations of a theory a posteri- ori, but rather the moments of consonance and dissonance between theories and practices interpenetrating each other, occurring in unison, inextricable in the very making of the theatrical material. Theatre is thus delineated as a springing experience of meaning, inherently embodying a living philosophy, far from the vagueness of abstract concept or exemplum, and manifesting as thought in action. The dialectics between body and thought, philosophy and theatre, theory and practice come to life in the contingency of bodies, within precise times and spaces.