The hypothesis from which this book starts is that the twentieth century has broken the link between time and history, thus producing a twofold consequence. On the one hand, time definitively loses the characteristics of linearity and coherence that it still had in Hegel, and will be conceived in terms of a multiplicity of heterogeneous temporal lines; on the other hand, and consequently, history tends to disappear from the philosophical horizon to give way to theses on a post-historical time, whose main characteristics are stasis, the inability to synthesize incoherent temporalities, the impossibility of producing openings towards the future. However, precisely within the short century – the one in which time has supposedly contracted to the point of expunging history from itself – critical reflections were produced, which, despite the acquisition of scientific and philosophical lessons about the multi- form and reversible nature of time, have recovered a fruitful relation with history in a cumulative and teleological sense.

Massimo Villani has a PhD in Political Philosophy. His studies concern modern and contemporary thinking. He is a member of the scientific/editorial staff of «Shift» and «Post-filosofie». He has translated and edited the Italian edition of several works of Jean-Luc Nancy and Jacques Rancière. He collaborates with the reviews «OperaViva», «err. scritture dell'imprevisto», «Singola. Storie di scenari e orizzonti». He published the monograph Arte della fuga. Estetica e democrazia nel pensiero di Jean-Luc Nancy (Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2020).