Abstract

Convinced that the works of Ernesto de Martino can make a fundamental contribution to the defining of contemporary materialism, the author contends that as well as being a great anthropologist de Martino was also one of the most original philosophers of 19th century Italy. The critique of the Kantian transcendental subject and the Heideggerian being-in-the-world, from which de Martino's reflections sprang, are translated into a genealogy of subjectivity and into a radically materialistic conception of historical time: the article reconstructs its fundamental characteristics through the analysis de Martino dedicated to the magical practices of primitive societies, religious rituals, and to "cultural apocalypses".