Giorgio Cesarale
Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia (giorgio.cesarale@unive.it).
Abstract: This paper addresses a crucial question of modern rationalism: the relationship between finitude and infinity. Reiterated across multiple dimensions – ranging from the problem of infinity itself to the tension between freedom and necessity, and between the ideas of the true and of the good – this polarity profoundly shapes the very conditions of possibility of modern subjectivity. Drawing on Borkenau’s reading of Descartes, the paper first examines this philosophical issue against the background of the transformation of the capitalist mode of production, from manufacture to machinery. Through a reappraisal of Hegel’s critique of Descartes as a merely metaphysical thinker, it then moves beyond Borkenau’s diagnosis of the modern subject’s incapacity to make sense of its own contingency – if not within a natural order whose fundamental determinations cannot but escape. The argument ultimately seeks to outline the scope of a dialectical reconsideration of the relationship between action, production, and nature, taking stock of the nihilistic power of capital.
Keywords: Rationalism; Hegel; Borkenau; Mode of Production; Dialectics; Power.