The Primal Structure of Agàpe

Abstract

The Primal Structure posits the primal truth‐justice nexus, but does not thematize it: for Severino the truth of being is supreme justice, because, if that were not the case, the Primal Structure would only be source of cognition and not of injunction. Severino, in fact, makes injunction and cognition, moral necessity and logical necessity, coincide. My hypothesis is that the works that followed La Struttura Originaria contain the necessary development of the Primal Structure and show how ontological difference, qua ontological difference, can be an ontological difference only provided it is also theological. Severino postulates but does not explain this movement, because theological difference necessitates an ethical connotation. Deontology of the foundation must return to ontology of the foundation. I will try to show how imagination is primal compared to concept, which ultimately uses imagination to secure itself to the existential.