The Italian difference (La differenza italiana)

Who were the nineteenth century philosophers in Italy? Negri is giving an answer that will surely give rise to astonishment, great fuss or enthusiasm. The author claims that the only Italian philosophers are those who have worked on the concept of difference. “The fact is” as he writes “that difference is resistance…”. Even though they have founded no schools, these philosophers have left offspring: “Forms, ways, contents and perspectives of the difference have come out of seminars and laboratories: they act and are being developed and reinvented within the movements and new social networks of the productive cooperation.” A real pebble, thrown into the gardens of Italian philosophy and political thought by the hand of that great visionary, that unrepentant rebel and powerful thinker better known as Toni Negri.