Books by Francesca Brencio
Springer-Nature , 2024
ISBN: 9783031662638
«Se c'è un silenzio che proviene dalla vigliaccheria tipica dell'essere umano incapace di riconos... more «Se c'è un silenzio che proviene dalla vigliaccheria tipica dell'essere umano incapace di riconoscere il proprio errore e con esso il male generato di cui si era più o meno consapevoli, c'è altresì un silenzio che nasce dalla vergogna, la quale sconta nell'esistere il non detto e il troppo rumore che intorno ad esso si crea. Come si colloca dunque la Judenfrage nel pensiero di Heidegger? Quali responsabilità si possono ascrivere al filosofo davanti all'orrore dell'Olocausto?»
Dalla sinossi:
Heidegger è stato antisemita? Di che tipo di antisemitismo si tratta? La Judenfrage è davvero il cuore degli Schwarze Hefte? Che tipo di responsabilità si possono ascrivere alla filosofia di Heidegger davanti all’orrore dell’Olocausto? Perché questa ossessione solo per il “caso Heidegger” e non nei confronti di altri filosofi, dichiaratisi apertamente antisemiti e nazisti? E perché questo diffuso anti-heideggerismo di ritorno? Come collocare l’interpretazione di Heidegger nella storia della filosofia dopo la pubblicazione dei Quaderni Neri? Ha senso pronunciare ora, allo stato attuale della pubblicazione dellaGesamtausgabe, giudizi definitivi o tentare ricostruzioni a posteriori?
Queste sono alcune delle domande alla base del libro.
Il lavoro sulle Überlegungen II-XV e sul recentissimo volume delle Anmerkungen I-V ha rappresentato un’occasione importante per praticare un’ermeneutica scrupolosa e libera da ideologie di ogni sorta; per riflettere sui molti temi contenuti nei Quaderni Neri e problematizzarne le domande radicali, rinunciando alla dicotomia delle risposte che vedono gli interpreti dividersi fra apologeti e detrattori. Ciò che è emerso da questo lavoro è che il pensiero di Heidegger, anche quello caratterizzato dalle affermazioni più abissali e dal buio della storia che le ha alimentate, è qualcosa di più dell’affaire Heidegger. Forse Gadamer non ha mai avuto torto: «Se uno è convinto di essere “contro” Heidegger – o anche se crede semplicemente di essergli “favorevole” – si rende ridicolo. Non è così semplice passare davanti al pensiero».
All’interno del volume, saggi di Paolo Beretta, Francesca Brencio, Sonia Caporossi, Marco Casucci, Francisco Gómez-Arzapalo y V., Michael Kraft, Luis Alejandro Rossi, Ángel Xolocotzi Yáñez.
"H eidegger […] è uno di quei filosofi che non si possono solo studiare, ma esigono dal proprio l... more "H eidegger […] è uno di quei filosofi che non si possono solo studiare, ma esigono dal proprio lettore uno sforzo interpretativo che, nella più autentica tradizione ermeneutica è anche partecipazione attiva all'impresa del pensiero […]. Francesca Brencio […] si presenta, con questo lavoro, come una mente filosofica che bene coglie lo "spirito del proprio tempo", […] praticando una storia della filosofia che è ermeneutica rigorosa e al tempo stesso non dogmatica […]. Brencio sta offrendo il proprio importante contributo, modificando in modo originale un approccio e uno stile tipico della tradizione continentale (in senso lato) e tedesca (in senso stretto), ma rimanendo aperta ad altri contributi". Dalla Prefazione di Paolo Diego Bubbio.
The comparison with Hegel’s thought has been a need for Heidegger’s philosophy, with a particular... more The comparison with Hegel’s thought has been a need for Heidegger’s philosophy, with a particular regard to the negativity, a subject that involves all of Heidegger’s Seinsfrage. The most important ground of this comparison is the text called Hegel, in which there is The negativity, written between 1938/1939 and resumed in 1942. Rebuilding the comparison between the heideggerian interpretation of Hegel’s negativity and the original sense of the negativity in Hegel’s thought, it emerges that Heidegger’s identification of Hegel’s negativity as the “conscience’s difference” is conditioned not only by the oblivion of the sense of Being, but also by Hegel’s doctrine of Being. In fact, Heidegger doesn’t move into the doctrine of Essence and this is the most important reason for which his interpretation brings back Hegel’s negativity to determine negation, as the negation of something, as simplex negatio; but this is not what Hegel means when he talks about the negativity as “negativity that denies only its negative”, because it has nothing to deny from itself. The purpose of my essay is to underline how Heidegger remains at a first level of interpretation without penetrating the sense of Hegel’s negativity.
Philosophy Journals - Special Issues by Francesca Brencio
Frontiers in Psychology - Special Issue, 2025
In “InCircolo – Rivista di Filosofia e Culture”, Special Issue ""Dal corpo oggetto alla mente inc... more In “InCircolo – Rivista di Filosofia e Culture”, Special Issue ""Dal corpo oggetto alla mente incarnata - From the object body to the embodied mind", a cura di F. Brencio, 11, 2021, pp. 9-20
ISSN 2531-4092
http://www.incircolorivistafilosofica.it/corpo/
Topografia della Speranza. Volti, Corpi ed Emozioni ai Tempi del COVID-19 , 2020
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals by Francesca Brencio
Psicopatologia Fenomenológica Contemporânea, 2026
The general aim of this contribution is to discuss a dilemma which lies in the conception and exe... more The general aim of this contribution is to discuss a dilemma which lies in the conception and exercise of psychiatry. This dilemma lies in the recognition that, on one hand the reified model for describing and understanding mental health is not sufficient for overcoming a Kraepelinian paradigm still influent in psychiatry; on the other hand, that despite this recognition we are still stuck with this theoretical model. To overcome this aporia, we propose a theoretical hypothesis which may contribute to abandon the reified paradigm in favor of a different approach for which what is at the stake in mental health conditions are not "things" happening in the brain, rather variations of subjective and intersubjective structures. Put it differently, "mental diseases" may not be seen as brain disorders, as the naturalist reductionism proposes, and as consequence, localized in the brain. Drawing on resources from classical phenomenological literature and its recent dialogue with enactivism, we propose a dialectic model of phenomenology, the use of which may contribute to the understanding of these variations and pave the route to a different consideration of mental health conditions. To explain our proposal, this paper is divided into three sections: in the first section, we appraise critically the epistemological model in psychiatry starting from the legacy of the Kraepelinian heritage still influent in this specialty and moving toward a more fine-grained model for describing and understanding mental health conditions. In the second section, we provide a theoretical hypothesis, namely the dialectic model of phenomenology, able to elicit the variations of the subjective and intersubjective structures that are at the core of mental health condition. In doing so, we examine four cardinal elements: ambiguity, reciprocity, negativity and betweenness, which dialectically shape the fundamental structures of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. In the last section, we present some of the characteristics that phenomenological psychopathology assumes from a dialectical perspective in the paradigmatic case of schizophrenia.
The British Journal of Psychiatry, 2025
We review the ambiguous legacy of Emil Kraepelin. He established an approach that secured psychia... more We review the ambiguous legacy of Emil Kraepelin. He established an approach that secured psychiatry's place as a medical specialty, and his methodology has dominated the profession and defined its long 20th century, 1899-2026. However, his eugenic views weigh heavily because of the catastrophes in which German psychiatry was implicated and to which it contributed actively during the Nazi era that followed. Furthermore, his project to establish mental illness in the form of discrete natural kinds has failed in the light of scientific progress. Psychiatry must embrace the complexity of mental illness and engage more deeply with the inherently fuzzy realms of language, culture, technological change and political power. This shift should bear more strongly on psychiatry's curriculum, research priorities, continuing professional development, practice, ethics and public engagement.
This article aims to offer clinical descriptions and philosophical interpretations of the ontolog... more This article aims to offer clinical descriptions and philosophical interpretations of the ontological nature of depressive experiences trying to address issues related to the contemporary diagnostic paradigm and valuesbased practices which shape clinical decisions. At the core of this contribution there is the idea that the variety of depressive experiences might be understood acknowledging the qualitative difference in the ontology underlying each form of depression. We argue that there is a fundamental difference between melancholia as a disease and those melancholic traits which characterizes human existence as such: while the former indicates a qualitative alteration of the global human experience, constituting psychopathological experience, the latter describes a style of disproportion of existence not pathological per se at all. Moreover, we defend the hypothesis that melancholia (in a medical sense) is a distinct unity of mental alteration, and should not be conflated with the multivarious kind of experiences merged under the name of depression, the variety of which may be understood as disorders of the personal development. It is in this context that the leading element of anthropological disproportions impact the role of pre-reflective and transcendental structures, polarizing the self and the world in a three-way topography: 1. depression as an excessive symmetric proportion between self and world; 2. depression as a disproportion between the self and the world (detriment of the self); 3. depressions as impoverishment of the transcendental value of the world.
International Review of Psychiatry, 2024
This contribution explores the significance of Marco Cavallo in the history of psychiatry using W... more This contribution explores the significance of Marco Cavallo in the history of psychiatry using Walter Benjamin’s concept of Bildwissenschaft. Here the concept of the image and the idea of fragmentation are seen as bringing to the surface certain thought-images (Denkbilder). As properly pre-theoretical (vor-weltlich) elements of our cognition, images operate revolutions: breaking from the familiar and opening a pathway to the exposure to shock [Chockerlebnis]. This gathers together the power of images to configure cognizability, as well as their possibility to rewrite history through the relationship of present to past. Marco Cavallo is offered as both image and metaphor for what is concealed behind mental health experiences, and as an image of the geography of “inside and outside”, both in terms of social and public spaces, as well as collective practices of care.
F. Brencio (2022), «…this phenomenon, which is none too happily designated as ‘empathy’». Martin ... more F. Brencio (2022), «…this phenomenon, which is none too happily designated as ‘empathy’». Martin Heidegger’s critique of empathy, in Bollettino Filosofico, 37, 243-251, ISSN: 1593 - 7178, E-ISSN 2035 - 2670
The Humanistic Psychologist, 2022
Bizzari, V., & Brencio, F. (2022). Psychiatric diagnosis as a political and social device: Episte... more Bizzari, V., & Brencio, F. (2022). Psychiatric diagnosis as a political and social device: Epistemological and historical insights on the role of collective emotions. The Humanistic Psychologist. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/hum0000307
The overarching aim of this contribution is to show how there are many elements in the making of a psychiatric diagnosis that are not confined to the nature of the "disease"-a topic that would require another work in order to be properly clarified-but rather that are grounded in the historical context and social elements. The circular and mutual influences of these elements contribute to forge certain epistemological frameworks that legitimize the use of certain diagnostic categories. This essay is divided into three sections. In the first section, we highlight how the notion of psychiatric diagnosis needs to be considered in light of some specific epistemological assumptions that deal both with theoretical principles, never mentioned in the most used diagnostic manuals, and with power relations. In the second section, we analyze the role of collective emotions in the making of a diagnosis and particularly their political implications. In the third section, we provide a historical and epistemological analysis of the birth of Asperger's syndrome, highlighting the role of collective emotions and their ideological impact on this diagnosis. Public Significance Statement Our paper explains how the process of diagnosis may be shaped by historical and political mechanisms and by social values, impacting our life as individuals and as members of a community. Diagnosis has in fact the power to favor the stigma towards the people who receive it, to label us and influence our relation to the social world.
Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia, 2022
F. Brencio, V. Bizzari (2022) Melancholic depression. A hermeneutic phenomenological account, in ... more F. Brencio, V. Bizzari (2022) Melancholic depression. A hermeneutic phenomenological account, in “Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia”, 13, 2, pp. 94-107, ISSN 2039-4667, E-ISSN 2239-2629, DOI: 10.4453/rifp.2022.0010
F. Brencio, (2022) [in italian] Martin Heidegger e il pensiero della cura, in “La società degli i... more F. Brencio, (2022) [in italian] Martin Heidegger e il pensiero della cura, in “La società degli individui”, n. 73, XXV, 2022/1, pp. 35-44, ISSN 1590-7031, ISSNe 1972-5752, DOI 10.3280/LAS2022-073004
Phenomenology and Mind , 2021
Brencio, F., Morand, P., Wilhelm, L., Sabourdy, C., Bauer, P. R. (2021), Intersubjectivity and s... more Brencio, F., Morand, P., Wilhelm, L., Sabourdy, C., Bauer, P. R. (2021), Intersubjectivity and social perception in epilepsy, in “Phenomenology and Mind”, Special Issue “The Phenomenology of Social Impairments”, 21, 2021, pp. 88-99, DOI 10.17454/pam-2107
Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 2021
in “Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology”, vol. 28 no. 1, 2021, p. 11-13. Project MUSE muse.jhu.e... more in “Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology”, vol. 28 no. 1, 2021, p. 11-13. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/785883 Print ISSN: 1071-6076, Online ISSN: 1086-3303
Psicopatologia Fenomenológica Contemporânea. Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Psicopatologia Fenômeno-Estrutural (SBPFE), 2020
Through this contribution I aim to show how the role of language and metaphors is fundamental to ... more Through this contribution I aim to show how the role of language and metaphors is fundamental to our understanding of reality, affecting the way we ordinarily act and live, and particularly important in facing fears and anguish. This is more evident in these times of the COVID-19 pandemic, where our experiences of language and of the world seem to be characterised mainly by war terminology. Politicians declare themselves at war fighting an invisible enemy and health care workers, who are in direct contact with COVID-19 positive patients, are said to be “fighting” on the “frontlines”. Starting from a philosophical account of the relationship between language, fear and anguish, I aim to show how this narrative is unhelpful, both for society at large and especially for patients and health care workers. While war narratives instil fear, it seems to me that new forms of solidarity and new models of coexistence are required. Since language shapes the way in which we think, live and act, it is important to choose words that encourage people to act responsibly, to cooperate and to overcome the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic together.
Phenomenology and Mind, 2020
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Books by Francesca Brencio
Dalla sinossi:
Heidegger è stato antisemita? Di che tipo di antisemitismo si tratta? La Judenfrage è davvero il cuore degli Schwarze Hefte? Che tipo di responsabilità si possono ascrivere alla filosofia di Heidegger davanti all’orrore dell’Olocausto? Perché questa ossessione solo per il “caso Heidegger” e non nei confronti di altri filosofi, dichiaratisi apertamente antisemiti e nazisti? E perché questo diffuso anti-heideggerismo di ritorno? Come collocare l’interpretazione di Heidegger nella storia della filosofia dopo la pubblicazione dei Quaderni Neri? Ha senso pronunciare ora, allo stato attuale della pubblicazione dellaGesamtausgabe, giudizi definitivi o tentare ricostruzioni a posteriori?
Queste sono alcune delle domande alla base del libro.
Il lavoro sulle Überlegungen II-XV e sul recentissimo volume delle Anmerkungen I-V ha rappresentato un’occasione importante per praticare un’ermeneutica scrupolosa e libera da ideologie di ogni sorta; per riflettere sui molti temi contenuti nei Quaderni Neri e problematizzarne le domande radicali, rinunciando alla dicotomia delle risposte che vedono gli interpreti dividersi fra apologeti e detrattori. Ciò che è emerso da questo lavoro è che il pensiero di Heidegger, anche quello caratterizzato dalle affermazioni più abissali e dal buio della storia che le ha alimentate, è qualcosa di più dell’affaire Heidegger. Forse Gadamer non ha mai avuto torto: «Se uno è convinto di essere “contro” Heidegger – o anche se crede semplicemente di essergli “favorevole” – si rende ridicolo. Non è così semplice passare davanti al pensiero».
All’interno del volume, saggi di Paolo Beretta, Francesca Brencio, Sonia Caporossi, Marco Casucci, Francisco Gómez-Arzapalo y V., Michael Kraft, Luis Alejandro Rossi, Ángel Xolocotzi Yáñez.
Philosophy Journals - Special Issues by Francesca Brencio
ISSN 2531-4092
http://www.incircolorivistafilosofica.it/corpo/
Curatori: F. Brencio, V. Bizzari e F. Andolfi
n. 23, anno 2020/1, ISSN 2240 – 337X
http://www.la-ginestra.com/quaderni/meditazioni-filosofiche/
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals by Francesca Brencio
The overarching aim of this contribution is to show how there are many elements in the making of a psychiatric diagnosis that are not confined to the nature of the "disease"-a topic that would require another work in order to be properly clarified-but rather that are grounded in the historical context and social elements. The circular and mutual influences of these elements contribute to forge certain epistemological frameworks that legitimize the use of certain diagnostic categories. This essay is divided into three sections. In the first section, we highlight how the notion of psychiatric diagnosis needs to be considered in light of some specific epistemological assumptions that deal both with theoretical principles, never mentioned in the most used diagnostic manuals, and with power relations. In the second section, we analyze the role of collective emotions in the making of a diagnosis and particularly their political implications. In the third section, we provide a historical and epistemological analysis of the birth of Asperger's syndrome, highlighting the role of collective emotions and their ideological impact on this diagnosis. Public Significance Statement Our paper explains how the process of diagnosis may be shaped by historical and political mechanisms and by social values, impacting our life as individuals and as members of a community. Diagnosis has in fact the power to favor the stigma towards the people who receive it, to label us and influence our relation to the social world.