Biography of Paolo Facchi
Paolo Facchi (1927 - 2020) studied literature and philosophy at Milan State University and graduated in 1949 with Antonio Banfi and Mario Dal Pra. Graduation thesis: L'opera storica e filosofica di W. Windelband. After graduating, he worked as an editor, translator and editorial collaborator for many institutions and publishers: Touring Club Italiano, Edizioni di Comunità, Fondazione Feltrinelli, Feltrinelli Editore, Antonio Vallardi, Vallardi Edizioni Periodiche, De Agostini di Novara and others. He translated Elementi di filosofia della scienza' by Edoardo May (Fratelli Bocca Editori, 1951). In the same years, he cultivated the problematics of the humanities, with a focus on the use of values in persuasive intentions. He was interested in the methodology of scientific discourse and the possibility of applying its results in common discourse (safety in communication). His points of reference are the work of the philosopher of science Giovanni Vailati and the operationalist methodologist Silvio Ceccato. He edited and participated in a collective research on political propaganda in Italy in the 1948 and 1953 election campaigns; experience that led to the publication of the book La propaganda politica in Italia (Bologna, Il Mulino, 1960). He broadened his interests to include the formation of public opinion and ideological discourse. Following research commissioned by the Feltrinelli Foundation in Milan on the Christian Democrat and Catholic left, he wrote the second part of the book La sinistra democristiana - storia e ideologia (Milan, Feltrinelli, 1962); the historical part was written by Giorgio Galli. He translated, for Feltrinelli, the book La élite del potere (The Power Elite) by Charles Wright Mills (Milan, Feltrinelli, 1959). For Edizioni di Comunità he translated (with Ursula Schnabel) Il principio dialogico, by Martin Buber (Milan, 1959).
He contributes articles on sociology, sociolinguistics, technique and history of persuasive and propagandistic discourse to the magazines Il Ponte (Florence), Rivista Critica di Storia della Filosofia (Mario Dal Pra), Rivista di Filosofia (Norberto Bobbio), Il Mulino, Rivista di Comunità (Adriano Olivetti), Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia (Bologna, Il Mulino), Methodos (Silvio Ceccato), Nuovo 75 (Andrea Mosetti), Methodologia (Felice Accame), since 1987. In 1965 he was among the promoters of the magazine Il Confronto (Antonio Massimo Calderazzi). In 1968, together with Guido Tassinari and other friends, he founded the magazine La via femminile (The Feminine Way), which took up and updated the themes of femininity, according to a perspective of dialogue between male and female in the couple and in society. It is considered the first post-war Italian cultural magazine dedicated to women's issues and an anticipator of feminism. Fourteen issues were published until 1976. He published the book Il potere economico (Bari, Dedalo, 1970), on the condition of men in industrial societies. It is an attempt to approach the study of economic power according to categories already successfully used in the study of political power; it contains an analysis of the forms of power within industrial societies, with particular regard to verbal conditioning and the influence of ideologies. In 1970 he obtained a teaching post in Philosophy of Language at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Trieste. He remained there until 1998. The reworking of university courses leads to the book Sicurezza e verità (Palermo, Palumbo, 1975); the formation of true discourse is related to a need for security, both individual and collective. Conducts linguistic research on the use of values in newspaper reporting and family education. He participated in the foundation and the Scientific Committee of the journal Scienze Umane (Bari, Dedalo, 1979 ff.) directed by Ferruccio Rossi-Landi and published the essay Aspetti dell'azione verbale nella formazione di atteggiamenti razzisti e fascisti (Aspects of verbal action in the formation of racist and fascist attitudes); it contains the account, not complete, of research carried out in the Trieste and Julian area and concerning the transmission of discriminating values to minors. Writings are published in the journal Problemi (Giuseppe Petronio). Begins studying the work of the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce. Contributes to the following journals: Nominazione (Armando Verdiglione), Philosophy and Social Criticism (Department of Philosophy, Boston College, Massachusetts), Kodikas/Code (Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen, Germany), Paradigmi (Giuseppe Semerari), Foundations of Semiotics (Achim Eschbach, Essen, Germany), Quaderni del circolo semiologico siciliano (Palermo). Still cultivating interests in the social phenomenon of the formation of political opinions in totalitarian regimes, he took part in the conference "Pensare e vivere l'anarchia" (Milan 24-25 September 1982) with a paper on Errico Malatesta: L'antipropaganda di Errico Malatesta nell'Italia borghese e fascista, which gave the title to the short essay published in 1983 (La Cooperativa Tipolitografica Editrice, Carrara). He participated in the 3rd International Congress of Semiotics in Palermo (June 1984) with a paper: Absence of event as causal explanation: linguistic formulations, published in "Semiotic Theory and Practice" (1988, Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin - New York). In 1982, together with Massimo Bonfantini and Agostino Viviani, he founded the Centro Studi Garanzie Costituzionali - GARCOS, for the protection of constitutional guarantees in terrorism trials. In 1985 he collaborated with the European Coordination Centre for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences in Vienna (Vienna Centre, Adam Schaff, Christiane Villain-Gandossi) on semiotic research on the text of the Helsinki Act (1975): Security and Cooperation in Europe. In 1986 he organized an international conference on this topic at the University of Trieste and published Notes sur le texte de l'Acte de Helsinki; Faits, nécessités, engagements. La bonne foi in: "L'analyse sémiotique dans la recherche comparative. Le vocabulaire des relations internationales" (Vienna, 1987). He promoted the publication of the full text in six languages of the Helsinki Final Act (Gottfried Egert Verlag, Wilhelmsfeld, Germany, 1990). In 1989, he organized a conference at the University of Trieste on Inventiveness in the Arts and Sciences, with the participation of scientists (Renato Boeri, Beppe Nardi, Antonio Borsellino, Marco Somalvico and others), semiologists (Massimo Bonfantini), art historians (Decio Gioseffi) and philosophers. He also spoke on inventiveness at the Ecole Française des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne, Paris. In 1990 he took part in the Naples conference Peirce in Italy, organized by the Centro Napoletano di Semiotica. He focused on the problem of stereotypes in discourse, participating in a conference in Rabat, Morocco (1991). At the outbreak of the Balkan wars (1991) he followed the problems closely from the Trieste observatory and prepared the collected volume Conflittualità balcanica - Integrazione europea (Trieste, Editre, 1993); he collaborated on the collected volume L'altra Serbia. Gli intellettuali e la guerra edited by Melita Richter Malabotta (Milan, Selene Edizioni, 1996).
He published the book Elementi del significare linguistico (Trieste, Editre, 1992) and participated with the essay Quando il linguaggio è gioco e quando non lo è at the 1996 conference of the Italian Association of Semiotic Studies in Gradara. He was interested in the problem of the relationship between stereotypes and appearances, in discourse and the human person. On the occasion of the Photographic Exhibition entitled Stereotypes, organized in January 1992 by the Events and Shows Commission of the S. Agostino Cultural Centre in Crema, with works by Olivo Barbieri, Enzo and Raffaello Bassotto, and Luigi Ghirri, he collaborated on the Illustrated Catalogue with the text: Le frasi fatte, relevant to the theme. He published the book Persuasioni - Scritti filosofici (1953-2010), edited by Massimo A. Bonfantini (Atì editore, 2012). He is the author of philosophical short stories that deal with different aspects of the human condition: Io non parlerò, L'ingegnere di sé, Diario di una macchina costruita per parlare; which appeared separately in previous editions, they were then collected in the small volume I tre racconti sulla parola (Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Naples, 1999); Madama gelosiette in: "Scrittura e interpretazione", edited by the Commissione Manifestazioni e Spettacolo del Comune di Crema (1993); Storie e storielle (Centro Internazionale della Grafica di Venezia, 1998); Racconti filosofici, edited by Massimo A. Bonfantini (Moretti Honegger, Bergamo, 2005) and others. In the years following his retirement, in the rooms of Villa Facchi that the Municipality of Casatenovo set up for the public and, under the patronage of the Casatenovo Municipality's Culture Department, he organized conferences on topics of general interest, including global and human, even challenging morals and customs. These include: Il libro artigianale - Mostra Manifestazioni Laboratori (2003); Artigiani del libro (2004 and 2005); La ricostruzione del paradiso terrestre (2006, exhibition curated by Giancarlo Pavanello); Le armi non servono (2007); Le paure dei nostri giorni (2008); Il rischio e noi (2009); Ci son troppo cose nelle nostre case (2010). The need to pronounce on contemporary events, to preserve for one's own memory and to pass on to a few friends reflections and feelings caught in the bud, is at the origin of a collection of self-published and self-distributed booklets: Berlu Berlu / Il grande biancatore (2010); Guerre guerre (2011); Riflessioni e speranze (2012); Un bel video elettroshock / Riflessioni e sospetti, in: Romano Trabucchi, Paolo Facchi - Vivere e non televivere (2012, two pamphlets); La fine del cretino / Umanità Nova (2013); La questione della colpa - Nuova sinfonia germanica (2015); Del mangiare e non (2015); La ragazza sospettosa / Beatrice e Babbo Francesco - due racconti (2017); Le giustificazioni della violenza / Dialogo e comprensione (2019); Massimo A. Bonfantini - Paolo Facchi : Così ci parlavamo (2020). He published the autobiographical book HOSTINATO RIGORE Ricordi, riflessioni, racconti, per un’autobiografia filosofica (Mimesis Edizioni, 2018).
.jpg)
.jpg)