{"title":"Paolo Virno","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the thought-provoking works of Paolo Virno, a key figure in contemporary philosophy. Explore his insightful essays on language, politics, and the human condition, perfect for readers seeking intellectual stimulation.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"deja-vu-and-the-end-of-history-book-paolo-virno-9781781686126","title":"Deja Vu and the End of History","description":"This book places two key notions up against each other to imagine a new way of conceptualizing historical time.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49556478460177,"sku":"GOR006800929","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49736307245329,"sku":"NGR9781781686126","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50057754935569,"sku":"CIN1781686122G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51565271974161,"sku":"GOR012201627","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52082000167185,"sku":"CIN1781686122VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1781686122.jpg?v=1751025946"},{"product_id":"grammar-of-the-multitude-book-paolo-virno-9781584350217","title":"A Grammar of the Multitude","description":"\u003cb\u003eItalian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of multitude is a far better tool to analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of people.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eGlobalization is forcing us to rethink some of the categories--such as the people--that traditionally have been associated with the now eroding state. Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of multitude, elaborated by Spinoza and for the most part left fallow since the seventeenth century, is a far better tool to analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of people, favored by classical political philosophy. Hobbes, who detested the notion of multitude, defined it as shunning political unity, resisting authority, and never entering into lasting agreements. When they rebel against the state, Hobbes wrote, the citizens are the multitude against the people. But the multitude isn't just a negative notion, it is a rich concept that allows us to examine anew plural experiences and forms of nonrepresentative democracy. Drawing from philosophy of language, political economics, and ethics, Virno shows that being foreign, not-feeling-at-home-anywhere, is a condition that forces the multitude to place its trust in the intellect. In conclusion, Virno suggests that the metamorphosis of the social systems in the West during the last twenty years is leading to a paradoxical Communism of the Capital.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49631826641169,"sku":"GOR011361546","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49764013048081,"sku":"CIN1584350210G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50811994865937,"sku":"GOR005417213","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50858490233105,"sku":"GOR008677815","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1584350210.jpg?v=1751464235"},{"product_id":"convention-and-materialism-book-paolo-virno-9780262045803","title":"Convention and Materialism","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe first English translation of the book that established Paolo Virno as one of the most influential Italian thinkers of his generation.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e With the 1986 publication of this book in Italy, Paolo Virno established himself as one of the most influential Italian thinkers of his generation. Astonishingly, this crucial work has never before been published in an English translation. This MIT Press edition, translated by Italian philosopher and Insubordinations series editor Lorenzo Chiesa, is its first English-language version. Virno here engages, in an innovative and iconoclastic way, with some classical issues of philosophy involving experience, singularity, and the relation between ethics and language, while also offering a profoundly transformative political perspective that revolves around the Marxian notion of the \"general intellect.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Virno reconsiders Walter Benjamin's idea of a \"loss of the aura\" (brought on, Benjamin argued, by technical reproducibility), and postulates instead the existence of a new experience of uniqueness that, although deprived of every metaphysical aura, resides in the very process of late-capitalist serial reproduction. Writing after the defeat of contemporary leftist revolutionary movements in the West, Virno argues for the possibility of a \"good life\" originating immanently from existential and political crises. Taking speculative detours through the thought of philosophers ranging from Aquinas and Berkeley to Heidegger and Wittgenstein, with a specific focus on Kant and Hegel, Virno shows how a renewed reflection on basic theoretical problems helps us to better grasp what is happening now. This edition features a preface written by Virno in 2011.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49740490572049,"sku":"NGR9780262045803","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/026204580X.jpg?v=1751290718"},{"product_id":"idea-of-world-book-paolo-virno-9780857429896","title":"The Idea of World","description":"A philosophical exploration of what capitalistic societies truly mean for the individual.     A short vade mecum for unrepentant materialism, The Idea of World collects three essays by Italian philosopher Paulo Virno that are intricately wrapped around one another. The first essay, \"Mundanity,\" tries to clarify what the term \"world,\" as referred to as the perceptual and historical context of our existence, means-both with and against Kant and Wittgenstein. How should we understand expressions such as \"worldly people,\" \"the course of the world,\" or \"getting by in this world\"? The second, \"Virtuosity and Revolution,\" is a minor political treatise. Virno puts forward a set of concepts capable of confronting the magnetic storm that has knocked out the compasses that every reflection on the public sphere has relied on since the seventeenth century. The third, \"The Use of Life\", is the shorthand delineation of a research program on the notion of use. What exactly are we doing when we use a hammer, a time span, or an ironic sentence? And, above all, what does the use of the self-of one's own life, which lies at the basis of all uses-amount to in human existence?     Presenting his ideas in three distinct vignettes, Virno examines how the philosophy of language, anthropology, and political theory are inextricably linked.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49742187888913,"sku":"NGR9780857429896","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0857429892.jpg?v=1751202671"},{"product_id":"essay-on-negation-book-paolo-virno-9781803093635","title":"An Essay on Negation","description":"A vital addition to Seagull’s growing Italian List that focuses on leftist Italian thought, bringing famous as well as little-known yet crucial voices into the English language.   As speaking animals, we continuously make use of an unassuming grammatical particle, without suspecting that what is at work in its inconspicuousness is a powerful apparatus, which orchestrates language, signification, and the world at large. What particle might this be? The word not.   In Essay on Negation, Paolo Virno argues that the importance of the not is perhaps comparable only to that of money—that is, the universality of exchange. Negation is what separates verbal thought from silent cognitive operations, such as feelings and mental images. Speaking about what is not happening here and now, or about properties that are not referable to a given object, the human animal deactivates its original neuronal empathy, which is prelinguistic; it distances itself from the prescriptions of its own instinctual endowment and accesses a higher sociality, negotiated and unstable, which establishes the public sphere. In fact, the speaking animal soon learns that the negative statement does not amount to the linguistic double of unpleasant realities or destructive emotions: while it rejects them, negation also names them and thus includes them in social life. Virno sees negation as a crucial effect of civilization, one that is, however, also always exposed to further regressions. Taking his cue from a humble word, the author is capable of unfolding the unexpected phenomenology of the negating consciousness.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49753569755409,"sku":"NGR9781803093635","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50707159023889,"sku":"CIN1803093633VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53627956101393,"sku":"GOR014987436","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1803093633.jpg?v=1751378137"},{"product_id":"multitude-between-innovation-and-negation-book-paolo-virno-9781584350507","title":"Multitude between Innovation and Negation","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe influential Italian thinker offers three essays in the political philosophy of language.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eMultitude between Innovation and Negation\u003c\/i\u003e by Paolo Virno translated by James Cascaito. The publication of Paolo Virno's first book in English, \u003ci\u003eGrammar of the Multitude\u003c\/i\u003e, by Semiotext(e) in 2004 was an event within the field of radical political thought and introduced post-'68 currents in Italy to American readers. \u003ci\u003eMultitude between Innovation and Negation\u003c\/i\u003e, written several years later, offers three essays that take the reader on a journey through the political philosophy of language. Wit and Innovative Action explores the ambivalence inevitably arising when the semiotic and the semantic, grammar and experience, rule and regularity, and right and fact intersect. Virno unravels the infinite potential and wonders of everyday linguistic praxis and ambiguity. Wit, he argues, is a public performance, and its modus operandi characterizes human action in a state of emergency; it is a reaction, an articulate response, and a possible solution to a state of crisis. Mirror Neurons, Linguistic Negation, and Mutual Recognition examines the relationship of language and intersubjective empathy: without language, would human beings be able to recognize other members of their species? And finally, in Multitude and Evil, Virno challenges the distinction between the state of nature and civil society and argues for a political institution that resembles language in its ability to be at once nature and history. Few thinkers take the risks required by innovation. Like a philosophical entrepreneur, Virno is engaged in no less than rewriting the dictionary of political theory, an urgent and ambitious project when language, caught in a permanent state of emergency impossible to sustain, desperately needs to articulate and enact new practices of freedom for the multitude. Paolo Virno is the author of several books, including \u003ci\u003eA Grammar of the Multitude\u003c\/i\u003e (Semiotext(e), 2004).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50195872317713,"sku":"GOR009014680","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50256897376529,"sku":"CIN1584350504G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52106855186705,"sku":"CIN1584350504A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52688562848017,"sku":"NLS9781584350507","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1584350504.jpg?v=1751374874"},{"product_id":"essay-on-negation-book-paolo-virno-9780857424389","title":"Essay on Negation","description":"As speaking animals, we continuously make use of an unassuming grammatical particle, without suspecting that what is at work in its inconspicuousness is a powerful apparatus, which orchestrates language, signification, and the world at large. What particle might this be? The word not. In Essay on Negation, Paol Virno argues that not's importance is perhaps comparable only to that of money that is, the universality of exchange. Negation is what separates verbal thought from silent cognitive operations, such as feelings and mental images. Speaking about what is not happening here and now, or about properties that are not referable to a given object, the human animal deactivates its original neuronal empathy, which is prelinguistic; it distances itself from the prescriptions of its own instinctual endowment and accesses a higher sociality, negotiated and unstable, which establishes the public sphere. In fact, the speaking animal soon learns that the negative statement does not amount to the linguistic double of unpleasant realities or destructive emotions: while it rejects them, negation also names them and thus includes them in social life. Virno sees negation as a crucial effect of civilization, one that is, however, also always exposed to further regressions. Taking his cue from a humble word, the author is capable of unfolding the unexpected phenomenology of the negating consciousness.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50256899834129,"sku":"CIN0857424386G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0857424386.jpg?v=1750746875"},{"product_id":"grammar-of-the-multitude-book-paolo-virno-9781635902204","title":"A Grammar of the Multitude","description":"\u003cb\u003ePaolo Virno on the rich concept of the \"multitude\" as crucial to understanding contemporary life.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Paolo Virno's \u003ci\u003eA Grammar of the Multitude\u003c\/i\u003e became the Italian theorist's best-known work in English, influencing a generation of activists and performance artists, when it was first published by Semiotext(e) in 2004. Two decades later, this new edition proves Virno's conception of contemporary life-as a cartography of virtualities made possible by post-Fordism-to have been strikingly prescient.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e At the start of the twenty-first century, globalization forced a rethinking of some of the categories-such as \"the people\"-that had been traditionally associated with the now-eroding state. Virno argues that the category of \"multitude,\" elaborated by Spinoza and for the most part left fallow since the seventeenth century, is a far better tool to analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of \"people\" favored by classical political philosophy. Hobbes, who detested the notion of multitude, defined it as shunning political unity, resisting authority, and never entering into lasting agreements. \"When they rebel against the state,\" Hobbes wrote, \"the citizens are the multitude against the people.\" But the multitude isn't just a negative notion; it is a rich concept that allows us to examine anew plural experiences and forms of nonrepresentative democracy. Drawing from philosophy of language, political economics, and ethics, Virno shows that being foreign, \"not-feeling-at-home-anywhere,\" is a condition that forces the multitude to place its trust in the intellect. In conclusion, Virno suggests that the metamorphosis of the social systems in the West during the 1980s and 1990s precipitated a paradoxical \"Communism of the Capital.\"","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51631663579409,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51631663776017,"sku":"NGR9781635902204","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51871313887505,"sku":"NIN9781635902204","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1635902207.jpg?v=1750863463"},{"product_id":"radical-thought-in-italy-book-paolo-virno-9780816649242","title":"Radical Thought in Italy","description":"Over the past several decades, Italian revolutionary politics has offered a model for new forms of political thinking. Radical Thought in Italy continues that tradition by providing an original view of the potential for a radical democratic politics today that speaks not only to the Italian situation but also to a broadly international context. First, the essays settle accounts with the culture of cynicism, opportunism, and fear that has come to permeate the Left. They then proceed to analyze the new difficulties and possibilities opened by current economic conditions and the crisis of the welfare state. Finally, the authors propose a series of new concepts that are helpful in rethinking revolution for our times. Contributors: Giorgio Agamben, U of Verona and College Internationale de Philosophie, Paris; Massimo De Carolis, U of Salerno; Alisa Del Re, U of Padua; Augusto Illuminati, U of Urbino; Maurizio Lazzarato; Antonio Negri, U of Paris VI; Franco Piperno, U of Calabria; Marco Revelli, U of Turin; Rossana Rossanda; Carlo Vercellone; Adelino Zanini. Paolo Virno is the author of several books, including the recently translated A Grammar of the Multitude. Michael Hardt is professor of literature and romance studies at Duke University.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52113930354961,"sku":"CIN0816649243VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780816649242.jpg?v=1764845433"},{"product_id":"on-impotence-book-paolo-virno-9781803096445","title":"On Impotence","description":"An incisive and urgent book that explores the hidden roots of our contemporary powerlessness.   Contemporary life is marked by a paradoxical form of impotence. Whether in love, labor, or political struggle, we often find ourselves locked in a state of frenetic paralysis—unable to act as we wish or to endure what confronts us. This impotence is not born of lack, but of excess: an abundance of skills, capacities, and opportunities that, instead of taking form as coherent actions or speech, stagnate and turn in on themselves. In this thought-provoking meditation, philosopher Paolo Virno examines this strange impotence through the lens of classical thought, drawing especially on Aristotle and Marx.     To overcome this troubling state, Virno calls for a collective search for a shared spiritual and practical exercise aimed at reclaiming agency. He argues that only by learning to renounce renunciation can we cultivate deliberate words and timely decisions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52821303066897,"sku":"NGR9781803096445","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781803096445.jpg?v=1767869415"},{"product_id":"on-impotence-book-paolo-virno-9781803096452","title":"On Impotence","description":"An incisive and urgent book that explores the hidden roots of our contemporary powerlessness.   Contemporary life is marked by a paradoxical form of impotence. Whether in love, labor, or political struggle, we often find ourselves locked in a state of frenetic paralysis—unable to act as we wish or to endure what confronts us. This impotence is not born of lack, but of excess: an abundance of skills, capacities, and opportunities that, instead of taking form as coherent actions or speech, stagnate and turn in on themselves. In this thought-provoking meditation, philosopher Paolo Virno examines this strange impotence through the lens of classical thought, drawing especially on Aristotle and Marx.     To overcome this troubling state, Virno calls for a collective search for a shared spiritual and practical exercise aimed at reclaiming agency. He argues that only by learning to renounce renunciation can we cultivate deliberate words and timely decisions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52821304279313,"sku":"NGR9781803096452","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53570327773457,"sku":"NIN9781803096452","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781803096452.jpg?v=1767867814"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-paolo-virno.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}