IL LABIRINTO E LA CITTÀ. MULTIPROSPETTIVISMO, GERARCHIA E INFINITO IN ATTO NELL’ARMONIA BAROCCA DI LEIBNIZ

Abstract

I will use the category of “baroque” to study Leibniz’s philosophy. This stylistic category, as well as “realism” and “romanticism”, is such a universal and pervasive form of culture that it goes beyond the strictly historical-artistic sphere, to determine a deep anthropological structure of thought; this structure unmistakably characterizes an epoch of European history as a specific view of human existence. I will claim that Leibnizian philosophy is “baroque” because I believe that from his texts do result some key elements that are constitutive of the Baroque style and life. Leibniz is the thinker of the infinite in act: like the creative activity of God, nature also presents an actual infinite that the human mind cannot walk through rationally, but only perceive and intuit with wonder. This infinity causes vertigo, dismay and anguish; it is the same anguish that Bach, in those same years, is able to distribute in the long intermediate dissonant passages of his compositions but which result, anyway, in harmonic conciliation.