TheRhythmofThoughtinGramsci Historical Materialism Book Series EditorialBoard SébastienBudgen(Paris) DavidBroder(Rome) SteveEdwards(London) JuanGrigera(London) MarcelvanderLinden(Amsterdam) PeterThomas(London) volume130 Thetitlespublishedinthisseriesarelistedatbrill.com/hm The Rhythm of Thought in Gramsci ADiachronicInterpretationof Prison Notebooks By GiuseppeCospito Translatedby AriannaPonzini leiden | boston Thisbookhasbeentranslatedthankstoatranslationgrantawardedbythe ItalianMinistryofForeignAffairsandInternationalCooperation,the FondazioneGramsciOnlusandtheDipartimentodiStudiUmanisticiofthe UniversitàdegliStudidiPavia,Italy. Questolibroèstatotradottograzieaduncontributoallatraduzione assegnatodalMinisterodegliAffariEsteriedellaCooperazione Internazionaleitaliano,dallaFondazioneGramsciOnlusedalDipartimento diStudiUmanisticidell’UniversitàdegliStudidiPavia,Italia. FirstpublishedinItalianasIlritmodelpensiero:perunaletturadiacronicadei«Quadernidelcarcere»di GramscibyBibliopolis,Naples,2011. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Names:Cospito,Giuseppe,1966-author. Title:TherhythmofthoughtinGramsci:adiachronicinterpretationofPrisonnotebooks/byGiuseppe Cospito;translatedbyAriannaPonzini. Othertitles:Ritmodelpensiero.English Description:Leiden;Boston:Brill,[2016]|Series:Historicalmaterialismbookseries,issn1570-1522; volume130|"FirstpublishedinItalianasIlRitmodelPensiero:perunaletturadiacronicadeiQuaderni delcarcerediGramscibyBibliopolis,Naples,2011."|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. Identifiers:lccn2016029418(print)|lccn2016039362(ebook)|isbn9789004266322(hardback:alk. paper)|isbn9789004326903(e-book) Subjects:lcsh:Gramsci,Antonio,1891-1937.Quadernidelcarcere.|Politicalscience–Philosophy.| Philosophy,Marxist. Classification:lccHX288.G6963C67132016(print)|lccHX288.G6963(ebook)|ddc300.1–dc23 LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2016029418 TypefacefortheLatin,Greek,andCyrillicscripts:“Brill”.Seeanddownload:brill.com/brill-typeface. issn1570-1522 isbn978-90-04-26632-2(hardback) isbn978-90-04-32690-3(e-book) Copyright2016byGiuseppeCospito. KoninklijkeBrillnvincorporatestheimprintsBrill,BrillHes&DeGraaf,BrillNijhoff,BrillRodopiand HoteiPublishing. Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,translated,storedinaretrievalsystem, ortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recordingorotherwise, withoutpriorwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher. AuthorizationtophotocopyitemsforinternalorpersonaluseisgrantedbyKoninklijkeBrillnvprovided thattheappropriatefeesarepaiddirectlytoTheCopyrightClearanceCenter,222RosewoodDrive, Suite910,Danvers,ma01923,usa.Feesaresubjecttochange. Thisbookisprintedonacid-freepaperandproducedinasustainablemanner. Contents ANoteontheText vii Preface:QuestionsofMethod ix part 1 Philosophy–Politics–Economics 1 StructureandSuperstructures 3 1 WorkingHypothesis 3 2 The‘Bukharinian’Phase(fromthePartySchooltoNotebook4,§§12 and15:1925–30) 6 3 The‘Centrist’ThesisfromtheEndof1930(Notebook4,§38) 12 4 The‘Crisis’of1931(Notebook7) 19 5 MovingbeyondtheArchitecturalMetaphor(Notebook8:Endof 1931–Beginningof1932) 23 6 The‘Inertia’oftheOldFormulations(Notebooks10,11and13: 1932–3) 27 7 ‘UnendedQuest’(Notebooks10,11,14,15and17:1932–5) 35 8 ProvisionalConclusions 44 2 Hegemony 49 1 Introduction 49 2 ‘PosingtheIssue’ 50 3 HegemonyandCivilSociety 55 4 HegemonyandtheIntellectuals 67 5 HegemonyandtheParty 71 6 TheSourcesofGramsci’sConceptofHegemony 82 7 A(Re)definitionofGramsci’sConceptofHegemony 86 3 RegulatedSociety 91 1 Philosophy–Politics–Economics 91 2 ‘ImportuningtheTexts’ 95 3 TheRegulatedSociety‘fromUtopiatoScience’ 97 4 TowardsaNewReformation? 105 5 GramsciasCriticofthe‘CriticalEconomy’ 113 6 Toward‘aNewEconomicScience’ 118 vi contents part 2 TheAnalysisofSeveralInternalDynamicsoftheNotebooks 4 The‘Alternatives’toStructure-Superstructure 135 1 ‘QuantityandQuality’ 136 2 ‘ContentandForm’ 145 3 ‘ObjectiveandSubjective’ 155 4 ‘HistoricalBloc’ 162 5 TheGradualTransformationinGramsci’sCategories 168 1 MethodologicalPremise 168 2 ‘Organic’,‘Bureaucratic’,‘DemocraticCentralism’ 169 3 ‘CommonSense’and/or‘GoodSense’ 184 4 CivilSociety 199 6 GramsciandtheMarxistTradition 207 1 ‘Marx,theAuthorofConcretePoliticalandHistoricalWorks’: CaesarismandBonapartism 207 2 EngelsandtheMarxistVulgate 217 3 Conclusion:Gramsci,fromLenintoMarx 227 Bibliography 231 NameIndex 242 SubjectIndex 246 A Note on the Text InthefollowingpagestheNotebookswillbecitedaccordingtothesequencing, internaldivisionsandsectionnumberingusedinAntonioGramsci,Quaderni delcarcere,criticaleditionpublishedbytheIstitutoGramsci,editedbyV.Ger- ratana,Turin:Einaudi,1977,4volumes(vol.4,CriticalApparatus,willbecited usingtheabbreviationqfollowedbythepagenumber),evenwherethesedo not correspond with those of the Edizione Nazionale degli Scritti of Anto- nio Gramsci, ii: Quadernidelcarcere, critical edition edited by G. Francioni, vol. 1, Quaderni di traduzioni (1929–1932), edited by G. Cospito and G. Fran- cioni,Rome:IstitutodellaEnciclopediaItaliana,2007(containing: Notebooks a [a]–[b]; b [a]–[b]; 9 [a]; c [a]–[d]; 7 [a]; d); vol. 2, Quaderni miscellanei (1929–1935),currentlyinpreparation(containing:Notebooks1,2,4[a]–[d],3, 5, 6, 7 [b]–[c], 8 [a]–[d], 14, 15, 17); vol. 3, Quaderni speciali (1932–1935), cur- rently in preparation (containing: Notebooks 10, 12, 13, 11, 16, 18–29). The fol- lowing English translations were used for the quotations: Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, edited with an Introduction by Joseph A. Buttigieg, New York: Columbia University Press, 2011, 3 vols. (corresponding to Notebooks 1–8, quoted without any further indications); Selection from the Prison Note- books, translated and edited by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, New York: International Publishers, 1971 (henceforth spn); FurtherSelections from the Prison Notebooks, translated and edited by Derek Boothman, Min- neapolis:MinnesotaUniversityPress,1995(henceforthfs);SelectionsfromCul- turalWritings,editedbyDavidForgacsandGeoffreyNowell-Smith,Cambridge, ma:HarvardUniversityPress,1985(henceforthcw);LettersfromPrison,edited byFrankRosengarten,translatedbyRaymondRosenthal,NewYork:Columbia UniversityPress,1994(henceforthlp); Pre-PrisonWritings,editedbyRichard Bellamy, translated by Virginia Cox, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 (henceforth ppw); Selection from Political Writings, selected and edited by Quintin Hoare, translated by John Mathews, London: Lawrence and Wis- hart, 1977–8, vol. 1 (1910–20) (henceforth spw i), vol. ii (1921–6) (henceforth spw ii);History,PhilosophyandCultureintheYoungGramsci,editedbyPedro CavalcantiandPaulPiccone,SaintLouis:TelosPress,1975(henceforthhpc). Textsnotfoundintheabove-mentionedsourcesweretranslateddirectlyfrom Italian, as were the quotations from the secondary literature, which was not updated with respect to the original edition of this book, published in 2011. Nevertheless, deserving of mention are several books that could not be con- sideredbackthenbutwhichtodayrepresentanessentialreferencepointfor several questions dealt with in the present work: P. Thomas, TheGramscian viii a note on the text Moment. Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism, Leiden: Brill, 2009; L. Rapone, Cinque anni che paiono secoli. Antonio Gramsci dal socialismo al comunismo (1914–1919),Rome:Carocci,2011;andG.Vacca,VitaepensieridiAntonioGramsci (1926–1937),Turin:Einaudi,2012. preface Questions of Method Six decades have passed since the initial publication, partial and topic-ori- ented,ofGramsci’s PrisonNotebooks,andmorethanthreedecadessincethe chronologicaledition.Atpresentanewcriticaltextisbeingpreparedofthis work for the Edizione Nazionale of his writings. Over this period an endless bibliographyonGramscihasarisenwhichatpresentnumbersslightlyfewer than 20,000 texts (in almost all the world’s languages), treating every aspect of Gramscian thought, from his life to his political writings, from his letters totheextraordinaryinterplayoftopicsinhisprisonnotebooks.1Nevertheless, inrecentyearsmanyscholarshaveseentheneedforfurtherexaminationof thenotebooksinordertoemphasisethediachronicplanofthewritingswith respecttothesychronicone,Gramsci’sopenreflectionsregardinghis(never definitive)objectives,andthepolysemousconceptsandcategoriesadoptedfor theindividualdefinitions.2 Involved here is a (re)reading of the Notebooks from the same perspect- iveGramscisuggestedusingtostudyMarx,settingforthseveral‘Questionsof Method’towhomeverwished‘tostudythebirthofaconceptionoftheworld whichhasneverbeensystematicallyexpoundedbyitsfounder(andonefur- thermorewhoseessentialcoherenceistobesoughtnotineachindividualwriting orseriesofwritingsbutinthewholedevelopmentofthemultiformintellectual workinwhichtheelementsoftheconceptionareimplicit)’.TothisendGramsci underscoredthat‘somepreliminarydetailedphilologicalworkhastobedone. Thishastobecarriedoutwiththemostscrupulousaccuracy,scientifichonesty andintellectualloyalty,andwithoutanypreconceptions,apriorismorpartipris’, inorder‘toreconstructtheprocessofintellectualdevelopmentofthethinker inquestioninordertoidentifythoseelementswhichweretobecomestable and“permanent”–inotherwordsthosewhichweretakenupasthethinker’s ownthought,distinctfromandsuperiortothe“material”whichhehadstud- iedearlierandwhichservedasastimulustohim’.Moreover,Gramsciwrotethat ‘thisselectioncanbemadeforperiodsofvaryinglength,determinedbyintrinsic 1 Cf.Cammett(ed.)Bibliografiagramsciana,availableon-lineat:http://213.199.9.13/ bibliografiagramsci/. 2 AneffectivemeanstoguideusthroughGramsci’sconceptuallabyrinthisLiguoriandVoza (eds.)2009,whichthereadershouldrefertoforalltheindividualtermsmentionedinthe presentwork.