The philosophy of Italian futurism: Riccardo Campa

Giulio Prisco
Turing Church
Published in
3 min readJun 11, 2020

--

I have been reading a very good book by my friend Riccardo Campa on the philosophy of Italian futurism.

At this moment Riccardo’s book, titled “Trattato di Filosofia Futurista,” is only available in Italian and not available in Kindle format. I think the world needs a translation and a Kindle edition, and I hope Riccardo will give both to the world. In the meantime, a free PDF version of the Italian edition is available via ResearchGate.

The Italian futurist movement, started by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, is often viewed as an anti-philosophical, anti-intellectual artistic movement, with political associations that many find unsavory. But Riccardo eloquently debunks these myths.

Italian futurism and fascism were not natural allies, but were essentially incompatible as emphasized by top representatives of both. That many futurists joined Benito Mussolini’s fascist party was due to realpolitik more than ideology.

Behind the anti-intellectual rhetoric of Italian futurism there’s a more or less consistent philosophical worldview to be found if one knows where to look. Especially interesting is the question of whether this is a philosophy of being or a philosophy of becoming in the sense of Bergson (see my book [*], Chapter 11). Riccardo argues that it is closer to a philosophy of becoming.

Many are persuaded that Italian futurism was somewhat similar or at least related to contemporary transhumanism, but Riccardo goes further (my translation):

“This author is persuaded that Italian Futurism was not only a precursor of transhumanism, but a fully achieved transhumanism ante-litteram.”

In fact, the writings of Italian futurists are full of transhumanist ideas such as humanity remaking itself by merging with technology, overcoming all limits, and ascending to the stars. In Riccardo’s words (my translation):

“Marinetti and the futurists set themselves objectives like, no less, ‘to challenge the stars’, ‘to ascend to the sky’, ‘to reconstruct the universe’, ‘to create the mechanical man with interchangeable parts’…”

Italian futurists were anti-clerical, but not anti-spiritual. On the contrary, many participated in theosophical salons and were open to paranormal phenomena, life after death, spiritualism and all that.

What about science? Here comes the part of the book that I found more interesting. Riccardo explains that (my translation), according to the futurists:

“The goal of science is not solving practical problems, but shedding light on the unknown. But here comes an unexpected twist… The futurists throw everyone off-balance with a statement on the edge of paradox: They affirm that knowledge is an intermediate goal, since the ultimate goal of science is… mystery!… the futurists exhort to seek knowledge precisely in order not to calm down, in order not to find that quiet of the spirit produced by the few and wrong notions we accept as ‘comfortable’.”

Like the futurists, I am persuaded that good science keeps us dreaming of “magic” hidden realities, and driven to develop new science and technologies to access and act upon these realities. I guess the process never ends [*].

Reading the book I have often found myself wondering whether Riccardo is describing the philosophy of the Italian futurists, or his own. Riccardo told me that, when trying to objectively interpret the thoughts of others, one inevitably adds something of his own, but this work is an interpretation.

However, I hope Riccardo will publish his own futurist philosophy for our times. The world needs it!

[*] My book “Tales of the Turing Church: Hacking religion, enlightening science, awakening technology” is available for readers to buy on Amazon (Kindle | paperback).

Please buy my book, and/or donate to support other Turing Church projects.

Cover picture: Mistero aereo, by Luigi Colombo (Fillìa), from Wikimedia Commons.

--

--

Writer, futurist, sometime philosopher. Author of “Tales of the Turing Church” and “Futurist spaceflight meditations.”