CONTRIBUTI / 1 / Alice Orrù
Habit and Climate in Giacomo Leopardi’s Theory of Habituation
The paper considers the role of the habit and its connection with the climate within Giacomo Leopardi’s thought, focusing in particular on Zibaldone di Pensieri (1817-1832) and Discorso sopra lo stato presente dei costumi degl’Italiani (1824). This link develops within the process of ‘habituation’ or acquisition of a ‘second nature’ that overlaps with the ‘first’ one: this happens thanks to the human ‘conformability’ and its imitative nature, with a pivotal role of the faculty of memory. More specifically, the focus is on Leopardi’s sources: firstly, the Aristotelian concept of hexis continued by empiricism and sensism between the 17th and 18th century (Locke, Hume, Condillac); secondly, the French Enlightenment thought with Montesquieu’s theory of climate and Cabanis’s medical philosophy. In Leopardi’s perspective, the traditions listed above are combined, and the habit is the result of different circumstances, including natural ones, like the climate, with all the resulting linguistic and anthropological implications, such as the relationship between physical and moral sphere.
