War

The first English translation of Emanuele Severino’s provocative analysis of the philosophy behind war in the West.

Drawing on a broad range of sources, from Heraclitus to 20th-century grassroots movements, Italy’s foremost philosopher calls for a new way of thinking that could lead the West to perpetual peace. For Severino, war is not merely the manifestation of conflict through violence to resolve disputes between nations or factions. Rather, it is a mode of thought deeply embedded in the foundations of Western civilisation.

Highlighting the divisive and isolating mechanisms that the West uses to conceptualise their bases of power, War shows that this divisive thought is so intrinsic to Western philosophy that even critiques of war are warlike. For peace to be possible, we need more than ceasefires; we need a fundamental re-evaluation of the history of Western thought.

Originally written in the geopolitical context of the 1990s, Severino’s text retains an extraordinary urgency at a time when the reality of war seems increasingly insistent. Bringing this relevance to focus, this volume includes a comprehensive introduction by translator Federico Divino, which carefully contextualises War historically and politically, whilst also situating it in relation to Severino’s wider philosophical oeuvre.

An accessible book, free from the more complex logical and metaphysical lexicons central to some of Severino’s other works, this is a must-read for anyone interested in why war happens and what may be needed to stop it.