MacIntyre's Reading of Vasilij Grossman and the Contemporary Ways of Realism

The last book of Alasdair MacIntyre, recently translated into Italian, considers the peculiarity of Grossman’s life and work (MacIntyre 2016). Grossman appears as one of the examples of practical reasoners who succeeded in achieving a virtuous life. On the one hand, MacIntyre’s reading is a sign of the growing popularity of Grossman in our epoch. On the other hand, philosophically speaking, MacIntyre’s peculiar reading is part of a tradition of readers focused on Grossman’s work, which is considered part of or an emblem of a philosophical theory.This paper attempts to recall those fundamental early theoretical readings (1), to situate MacIntyre’s reading of Grossman within this tradition, emphasizing in particular his realism (2), and further to qualify Grossman’s realism, taking into account the chronological developmentof his thought in a metaphysical sense (3).