Roberto Mucciarini
Oltre il nulla e la Gloria
(Beyond nothingness and Glory)
Illumanesimo and the Ontology
of Emanuele Severino:
A Confrontation
Extended Abstract and Book Overview
Illumanesimo — from the fusion of Umanesimo (Humanism) and Illuminismo (Enlightenment): Oltre il nulla e la Gloria concludes the comparative phase of the corpus of the eponymous philosophy.
Extended Abstract
This book stages a systematic confrontation between two ontologies that share a single premise and diverge on everything that follows from it. The premise is the rejection of nihilism — understood, with Emanuele Severino, as the West’s founding persuasion that beings emerge from nothingness and return to it. The divergence concerns the nature of the foundation of being. For Severino, the eternity of every being entails the negation of becoming: what we call birth, change, and death is the appearing and disappearing of eternal beings, and any philosophy that takes becoming ontologically seriously remains complicit in nihilism. For Illumanesimo — an original Italian philosophical proposal to which this book belongs — the eternity of being is instead compatible with a real journey: what becomes does not acquire being that it previously lacked, but actualizes a potential that was already fully its own.
The book unfolds in three movements. The first (chapters 1–6) presents Severino’s system on its own terms and without shortcuts: his life and his celebrated clash with the Vatican; the “originary structure” of the opposition between being and nothingness; the essence of nihilism; the three figures the book calls the “trinity of nihilism” — will, freedom, praxis; technics as the fulfillment of Western metaphysics; and the doctrine of Glory (La Gloria) as the speculative summit of his later thought. The second movement (chapters 7–16) conducts the confrontation theme by theme: the appearing of beings, the cognitive function of consciousness, the foundation, equilibrium, becoming, freedom, God, death, and technics. The third (chapters 17–18) offers a symmetrical assessment: first what Illumanesimo learns from Severino, then what it offers in return.
At the center of the confrontation stands one divergence from which all others follow: where Severino thinks being as inert necessity — the eternal that simply is, from which nothing proceeds — Illumanesimo thinks it as active foundation: an impersonal yet living origin that articulates its own configurations by ontological necessity, not by arbitrary will. This is neither the personal God of the religions nor creation ex nihilo — both of which Illumanesimo rejects together with Severino — but a third term between arbitrariness and inertia. From this root the book derives its constructive proposals: becoming as actualization and disclosure rather than a transition between being and nothingness; freedom as the qualitative self-determination of the CEFA (Campo Energetico di Forze Autocoscienti — Energy Field of Self-Aware Forces — the individual self-aware spiritual entity), not as the arbitrariness Severino rightly criticizes; death as a change of state rather than annihilation; technics as a steerable risk rather than an ineluctable destiny.
The book does not claim to refute Severino. A dedicated appendix on the elenchos argues why this is impossible — and why it does not matter. Severino’s argument is incontrovertible for what it actually demonstrates: the impossibility that being is nothing. But it does not reach the point at which the nature of the foundation is decided. There, both ontologies choose; and Severino’s choice of inert necessity is no more protected by the elenchos than Illumanesimo’s choice of the active foundation. The confrontation therefore remains open, between distinct theorems called to measure themselves against each other to the end — which is precisely the book’s methodological wager: a metaphysics that is apodictic within its own system and abductive about it, offered for discussion rather than imposed.
Book Overview
1. Why Severino? A note for non-Italian readers.
Emanuele Severino (1929–2020) is widely regarded as the most important Italian philosopher of the second half of the twentieth century — in Italy his La struttura originaria (1958) enjoys a status comparable to that of Being and Time — yet he remains little known in the anglophone world. Between 1961 and 1970 he was investigated by the Vatican; the “fundamental incompatibility” found between his thought and Christian doctrine cost him his chair at the Catholic University of Milan. His central thesis is as simple to state as it is radical to think: every being is eternal, and the belief that things emerge from nothing and return to nothing — the hidden conviction of the entire West, from Greek metaphysics to modern technics — is “the extreme folly”, the essence of nihilism. English-speaking readers can access his thought through The Essence of Nihilism (Verso, 2016, ed. I. Testoni and A. Carrera, trans. G. Donis), the essay collection Nihilism and Destiny (Mimesis International), and the journal Eternity and Contradiction: Journal of Fundamental Ontology, founded in 2019 around the study of his work.
2. What is Illumanesimo?
Illumanesimo (the name is invariant and is not translated) is an original philosophical proposal developed in an eight-volume corpus by Roberto Mucciarini, which positions itself as a third cultural turning point after Humanism and the Enlightenment. Its four pillars are: an impersonal conception of the divine; universal Reality as a dynamic unity; the CEFA (Campo Energetico di Forze Autocoscienti, “Energy Field of Self-Aware Forces” — the acronym is likewise invariant) as an individual spiritual entity; and incarnation as an evolutionary choice. The corpus is published through Amazon KDP, while its explanatory materials are archived on Zenodo, Academia.edu, SSRN, and PhilArchive; the present book is its most sustained engagement with a single philosopher.
3. The book at a glance.
Part One (chs. 1–6): Severino on his own terms — life and work; the originary structure and the essence of nihilism; eternity and the appearing of beings; the “trinity of nihilism” (will, freedom, praxis); technics as the fulfillment of Western metaphysics; Glory, the destiny of truth, and the surpassing.
Part Two (chs. 7–16): the confrontation theme by theme — convergences and method (ch. 7); appearing and concretization (ch. 8); the cognitive function of the CEFA (ch. 9); the active foundation (ch. 10); equilibrium as a universal regulating principle (ch. 11); becoming as actualization (ch. 12); the freedom of the CEFA (ch. 13); God as the Absolute co-eternal with its own articulations (ch. 14); death as a change of state (ch. 15); technics — steerable risk or ineluctable destiny? (ch. 16).
Part Three (chs. 17–18): “Toward a possible synthesis” — what Illumanesimo learns from Severino (ch. 17) and what it offers in return (ch. 18).
Concluding note — “The limit and the inception”: the arc of the book in three movements and the stakes beyond Severino.
Appendix A — the Severinian elenchos and the status of the choice concerning the foundation (the book’s methodological core).
Appendix B — notes on terms: a glossary of Illumanesimo’s technical lexicon and of the terms that must not be confused with their historical homonyms.
4. The core of the confrontation: necessity vs. active foundation.
Both ontologies deny that being can come from or return to nothingness. Severino concludes that being is “inert”: the eternal simply is; nothing proceeds from it; becoming is appearance. Illumanesimo concludes instead that the foundation is active: God — impersonal, other than and beyond its own substance, yet living (“a living though impersonal subjectivity”) — emanates its configurations by ontological necessity, a third term between arbitrary will and inertia. God does not precede its articulations in time but only ontologically; in God, thought and act coincide; God is not “free” — God is the principle of freedom, whose exercise belongs exclusively to the CEFA. From this single root the book derives:
A becoming without nihilism. Becoming is the actualization and disclosure of a potential that is already fully possessed — never the acquisition of new being. The CEFA is “the eternal on its way”: eternal in being, journeying in manifestation.
A freedom as ontological structure. Not the arbitrary freedom of choosing between being and non-being (which Severino rightly ranks among the figures of nihilism), but qualitative self-determination: the manner and degree to which the CEFA actualizes its own potential. It includes the possibility of error, and it never operates between being and nothingness — hence it escapes Severino’s critique.
A subject for appearing. Severino’s system describes an appearing without a real addressee. Illumanesimo answers the question “appearing — to whom?” with the CEFA: a real, individual, self-aware destination of appearing that does not relapse into subjectivism (the CEFA is neither the empirical ego nor the Cartesian res cogitans).
Death as a change of state. Body, psyche, and ordinary consciousness are relinquished; the CEFA persists and the Soul (the CEFA–body interface) is reorganized. The evaluation of a life is constitutive, not retributive; the fear of death is somatic, not ontological. Hence the Illumanist reversal: the Spirit is the permanent “this side” (al di qua), matter the transitory “beyond” (al di là).
Technics as steerable risk. The book accepts Severino’s diagnosis of technics but not his prognosis. Technics is not omnipotent and has an ontological limit — the CEFA, which no technical apparatus can reach; the real danger is not the machine that dominates but the human being who abdicates; AI, far from refuting the thesis, becomes its confirmation: a “mirror of the irreducible” that exposes the distinction between computation and self-awareness.
5. The methodological wager: apodictic within, abductive about.
Appendix A assesses the scope of Severino’s elenchos — the argument by which the negation of the opposition between being and nothingness refutes itself. The book distinguishes three theses: T1, the incontrovertibility of that opposition (which Illumanesimo endorses without reservation); T2, the eternity of every isolated determination (which it handles through the doctrine of the change of state); T3, the claim that necessity is the only modality of the eternal. The elenchos, the book argues, establishes T1 but does not reach T3 — and T3 is precisely where the two ontologies part ways. On that terrain both systems choose, and Severino’s choice of inert necessity is no more protected by the elenchos than Illumanesimo’s choice of the active foundation. Correspondingly, the Illumanist theorem declares its own dual status: apodictic within the system (conditional necessity: granted the principles, the consequences follow rigorously) and abductive about the system (an inference to the best explanation of indirect evidence — universal values, irreducible qualitative differences between individuals, the qualitative character of conscious experience). Every intellectually honest metaphysics, the book contends, is apodictic within itself and answerable for its assumptions without — including Severino’s.
6. Key terms (invariant lexicon).
Illumanesimo — the name of the philosophical proposal; never translated.
CEFA — acronym of Campo Energetico di Forze Autocoscienti (explanatory English gloss: “Energy Field of Self-Aware Forces”); the eternal, individual, self-aware spiritual entity; never translated or altered.
Active foundation (fondamento attivo) — being/God as a foundation that actively articulates its own configurations, versus the inert necessity of Severino’s destiny.
Actualization / disclosure (attualizzazione / disvelamento) — the Illumanist reading of becoming: manifestation of what is latent, never acquisition of new being.
The eternal on its way (eterno in cammino) — the concise formula of the Illumanist position.
Symbolization (simbolizzazione) — the process by which incarnate experience is translated into permanent spiritual knowledge and integrated into the CEFA.
Change of state (cambiamento di stato) — the Illumanist concept of death.
Ontological necessity — the third term between arbitrary will and inertia; the modality of divine emanation.
7. Audience and positioning.
The book is addressed to scholars of fundamental ontology, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of technology. It serves anglophone readers in two ways: a rigorous, self-contained exposition of Severino’s thought — still scarce in English — and a constructive counter-proposal that engages him on his own terrain instead of dismissing him. It also engages with the most recent Italian debate (Massimo Cacciari’s Metafisica concreta, 2023, and the recent critical literature). The style is systematic but accessible; all Greek and Italian technical terms are glossed; a full glossary (Appendix B) makes the book suitable as an introduction to both systems.
8. The author and the work.
Roberto Mucciarini is the author and founder of Illumanesimo and its eight-volume corpus (L’Illumanesimo; Esperienze; La Realtà; Il senso di ogni vita; CEFA — Proposta di indagine; Metafisica necessaria; Il filo d’oro della filosofia; Oltre il nulla e la Gloria), published via Amazon KDP and archived on Zenodo, Academia.edu, SSRN, and PhilArchive. Oltre il nulla e la Gloria comprises eighteen chapters in three parts, a concluding note, and two appendices. Further information: Illumanesimo.it.
Keywords: Illumanesimo; CEFA; Emanuele Severino; nihilism; eternity; becoming; active foundation; inert necessity; elenchos; Glory; technics; death and the change of state; freedom; appearing; fundamental ontology; metaphysics.
Complete references to the volumes of the corpus are available on the Books page.
© 2025 Roberto Mucciarini.
Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International license (CC BY 4.0).
Extended abstract also archived on Zenodo
Translation Note. The English translation has been produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools and subsequently revised. In the event of any discrepancy, the original Italian text constitutes the sole authentic reference and shall prevail.