Abstract

The metaphor of sacrifice is involved in different contexts of human life; specifically,the knowledge and the communication of truth are often supposed to imply sacrifices. This paper aims to show the role of sacrificial semantic for the conceptualization of truth in Giordano Bruno’s philosophy. In fact, Bruno allows us to appreciate the continuity between the logical structure of the religious institution of sacrifice and the philosophical use of sacrificial metaphors. More specifically, Bruno shows that our understanding of philosophical truth can be deepened if the kind of sacrifice involved with the search of truth is disclosed by starting from a ritual and religious point of view. By interpreting passages of Bruno’s works it becomes clear that the concept of sacrifice, on the one hand, serves for the critique of specific conceptions of truth, and, on the other hand, for the self-legitimization of the philosopher. Firstly, we read the Actaion’s mythos in terms of a Foucaultian aleturgy; then we reconstruct the connections between the sacrificial metaphor and other metaphors which are used to present the philosophical knowledge. Finally, we discuss the meaning of the sacrificial metaphor for a possible moral evaluation of dangerous researches of truth and come to suggest that Bruno develops a kind of narrative justification of the sacrifice for the sake of truth which appeals to a specific fundamental experience.