La freccia e il cerchio
anno 8, numero 8, 2021
pp. 27-30

Massimo Capaccioli, Bruno Moroncini
Beyond the enemy: making a choice

I. Recognising each other

MORONCINI

Enemy/guest: let’s start from the philological foundation of this notion. Émile Benveniste, great 20th-century linguist, addresses this concept in his famous book, Le Vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes [Vocabulary of Indo-European institutions]. Benveniste traces the linguistic transformation of the terms xenos and filos in Greek — the foe or the stranger, but filos also means ‘guest’ according to Benveniste — and of the terms hostis and hospes in Latin, which, while implying two opposites (the enemy and the guest), happen to share the same root, since one derives from the other. Originally, in both ancient Greek and Latin, hostis meant ‘guest’.

CAPACCIOLI

An ambiguous union. I did not know about that and, I must say, I did not expect it. In my opinion, enemy and guest hold deeply different meanings and values. The etymological root is interesting, and it most certainly bears profound anthropological motivations. Hospitality represents the condition in which an individual gives up hostility. You are my guest, nothing bad will happen to you, I won’t harm you, even if I wish to do so.

MORONCINI

A clear choice.

CAPACCIOLI

At times it can be a matter of attempted shrewdness, a shelter. I give myself in as a guest and try to save my skin.

MORONCINI

What you are saying does not contradict Benveniste’s analysis. The etymological reconstruction of the terms tells us that the Italian word ospite (host and guest) is a double figure — ospite is both the one that welcomes and the one who is welcomed. Originally, the one who is welcomed could also be the stranger, the foreigner, perhaps the enemy. There is a process by which the one who introduces himself as the enemy (or perhaps he is indeed the enemy) can be literally ‘domesticated’ and translated back into the sphere of friendship. No doubt, the enemy who becomes a guest retains some sort of radical alterity. This way, the dialectical engagement between friend and foe is kept, despite the fact that yesterday’s foes may become today’s friends.

CAPACCIOLI

At any rate, in the territory of science speaking of friendship and hostility makes little sense. Such a dialectical engagement does not exist. Science, as such, does not acknowledge the enemy, nor does it recognise itself as the enemy. Science is neither good nor bad: it’s knowledge. It is a human need, something that tells man from animals. It is a form of curiosity, which is in some way innate and oriented towards the good, because it aims to acquire knowledge. Only once it evolves into application and technology, can science appear to us as good or evil. Nuclear energy is a case in point: pure knowledge of the properties of the atomic nucleus can be employed with good intentions or to construct the atomic bomb. When Oppenheimer, director of the team of scientists who had produced it, verified the effects of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he declared: ““the physicists have known sin.” He did not say, however, that physics had become sin.

MORONCINI

There is indeed a problem with modern science. Ancient science, I don’t know if you agree with me on this, was not science stricto sensu. Aristotle’s physics is not scientific, at least not in the sense we intend today. This is because, aside from mathematics, geometry and, partly, astronomy, the rest
–physics and the living world – was based on the primacy of sensory perception rather than on the abstract language of mathematical sciences. In this sense, it was powerless with respect to bending nature for human purposes. Ancient science is contemplative and limited to the realm of observation. The paradox lies in the fact that the very language of numbers makes science operational, allowing it to intervene on natural processes and use its power. It should not surprise us, then, that, when the modern science of the atom offered the opportunity to translate theoretical knowledge into the construction of weapons of mass destruction, this opportunity was seized. One should add, however, that in the end this choice was not made by scientists: it was a political choice.

CAPACCIOLI

A political choice, but one that scientists — not all of them — accepted. The excuse provided to justify the launch of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that by doing so Americans would interrupt the war and save a million lives. Going one step back, I do agree with your notion of ancient ‘non-science’, even though I believe that it was science nonetheless. Perhaps it was not ‘conscience’, in the sense that things were learnt in a rather empirical way. When men learned how to put carbon into iron, thereby inventing steel, they created something that could be used to produce swords to fight and defeat those who still used bronze weaponry. Science was born when man began to ask questions about nature and the external world.
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