Tullio De Mauro e Emilio Garroni

A study of the relationship between the work of Tullio De Mauro and that of Emilio Garroni would require lengthy research on their respective texts, in-depth theoretical reflection, and constant comparison with the Italian and international philosophical-cultural debate contemporary to them, with which they maintained a constant dialogue. Such investigation would also constitute an important chapter in the history of Italian culture from the second half of the 20th century to the present. Of this rich and articulated mosaic, a few individual tiles are considered here. To begin probing the “distance in proximity” that I believe characterizes the relationship between the two scholars, the essay in fact takes its cue from the different way of reading a passage from an author dear to both, paragraph 90 of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. A theoretical knot from which a dialogue unravels, sometimes explicit, sometimes subterranean, centered on the nature of “sense” in human experience and that of linguistic and philosophical (mis)understanding. Two often divergent perspectives emerge, but rooted in a deep ethical consonance.