Facticity, Transcendence, Value: Enzo Paci and Ernesto De Martino in Dialogue

This article sets out to examine the 1950s debate between Enzo Paci and Ernesto de Martino, with particular attention to the Italian reception of phenomenology, but also to other philosophical references that prove decisive for this confrontation, namely Croce’s historicism and Abbagnano’s positive existentialism. We will follow the arguments presented by the two thinkers in Il nulla e il problema dell'uomo and Scritti filosofici to elucidate the philosophical foundations of their debate. In conclusion, it will be shown how Paci and De Martino, from different perspectives, both affirm a primacy of the concrete monad in its constitutive relation to the spiritual, which finds expression in a fundamentally existentialistic understanding of phenomenology.