Movement as immanent praxis. The anti-theory in "Prison Notebooks"

Abstract

A modern classic, Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks represents today a point of reference in diverse fields, from anthropology to history, from political theory to literary studies and sociology. In order to understand how Gramsci’s methodology functions, one needs to focus on movements between ‘high’ and ‘low’, aristocratic and popular, war of strategy and war of position, dominant and subaltern. In the attempt to go beyond Croce’s conservative idealism, Gramsci rediscovers young Marx’s revolutionary writings and adopts a radical stance in which Marxism coincides with an immanent – that is, mobile – critique of humanity in which institutions and common sense are stripped of any metaphysical residuals: no transcendent meaning exists, and facts must be ascertained as the outcome of trends and contingency. Gramsci called it philosophy of praxis and singled out philology as its instrument. This contribution aims at reconstructing the context in which this highly dynamic, anti-dogmatic conception develops, eschewing determinism and the hidden teleology of positivism. Gramsci makes hegemony interact with ‘general will’ and the idea of a social contract, emphasizing the role that civil society and private individuals can play in a modern, possibly democratic society. Mobility as a theory of social change looms large in the Prison Notebooks, whereas passive revolution reflects the fixity of state centrism related to uneven social conditions. But above all the philosophy of praxis’ strength consists in its self-reflective faculty, what Said defines as “Traveling theory”, ideas and theories that move from one culture to another, involving processes of representation and institutionalization different from those of the point of origin, thus spreading critical consciousness through movement.