Elogio dell'invidia. Una riflessione filosofica

[Autom. eng. transl.] Historically, philosophers have classified envy as a passion, a vice, a sin or in any case as a corrosive experience and therefore harmful both for those affected by it and for those who may be victims of the hostile attitudes that often derive from it. The volume instead shows that envy is not only a central existential component of the human being, but that at the same time it escapes a unique definition by virtue of its dynamic nature. The latter derives from the friction between the self-representation that each inevitably operates when he is conscious of himself and the external reality with which this self-representation is not always in perfect harmony. From this disagreement arise those manifestations, usually aimed at the closest people, which are classified as "envy" and which in reality are only reactions to the clash between the representation of one's own world and the experience of the real one. In the essay, envy is therefore examined through three methodological lines. The first focuses on the assumptions of the way of thinking underlying envious tensions, the second is aimed at deconstructing these assumptions to analyze them, while the third recomposes the puzzle by revealing how the envious component is unavoidable in the construction of personal identity. To better reconcile these fundamental approaches, literature is often referred to as their ideal synthesis.