Forma e limiti dell’organismo. La posizione di Plessner a partire da Buytendijk e Driesch

Form and Limits of the Organism. Plessner’s Position Starting from Buytendijk and Driesch. In Helmuth Plessner’s philosophy of organic life it is possible to see a particular attention to the morphological dimension of the living being. At the basis of the deduction of “organic modals” (the categories of living nature and of the human being), developed in his work Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (1928), there is a series of considerations that leads Plessner’s reflection from the intuitive experience of a living body to the construction of the category of “positionality” (Positionalität), passing through the phenomenal perception of the contours and the logical definition of limit. For this path, which will arrive at the principle of “realization of the limit”, are important the idea of “clarity of delimitation” (schärfe der Begrenzung) proposed by Frederik J.J. Buytendijk and the concept of “totality” (Ganzheit) as a “supra-gestaltic” structure (übergestalthaft) developed by Hans Driesch in contrast with Wolfgang Köhler.