La «scoperta» della ragione collettiva. Note su Illuminismo e modernità

The paper explores the hypothesis that the philosophical-political reflection around the protagonism of collective subjectivities developed, between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in connection with the elaboration of an idea of unconscious (collective) rationality, giving rise to the construction of a new paradigm of philosophy of history, in tune, on the one hand, with the thesis of the progressive nature of history, but oriented, on the other hand, in a critical sense towards the status quo and therefore open to the most radical dynamics of political and social transformation. After having shown, by antithesis, the idea of systemic (impersonal) rationality underlying the classical economic-political paradigm (section 2), the paper examines paradigmatic texts of the eighteenth and nineteenth century continental debate (sections 3-6) to conclude (section 7) on the study of an unexplored reflection by Antonio Labriola on the influence of the unconscious on the elaboration of thoughts and practical conduct.