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Senses and Forms of Error in The Originary Structure by Emanuele Severino



Author(s)

Antimo Lucarelli

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DOI:10.17265/2159-5313/2026.05.002

Yale University, New Haven, USA

This article concerns Emanuele Severino’s masterpiece The Originary Structure, which was published this year for the first time in English. The article investigates the concept of “error” presented in the text. To understand one first notion of “error” offered by The Originary Structure, is to understand the notion of the “whole”: The “error”, as what exceeds the whole, is nothing: “nothing” as nihil absolutum. This implies that if an error is discovered, it is discovered as what exceeds the whole and nevertheless, for Severino, is meaningful. This is by me shown with the transition from an “idealistic” perspective to a “realistic” one. But if the error is, what can still mean that it is an “error”? This question leads me to the second notion of “error”: The error exists as what is, at the same time, present and absent, so it can be called an “illusion”. After having gained these two senses of the error, I proceed to examine what specifically is an error in The Originary Structure by Emanuele Severino, and to notice it would be arbitrary to supersede contradiction (which is an error, for Severino) even if this were necessary: arbitrary about how to overcome it.

Emanuele Severino, error, whole, nihil absolutum, The Originary Structure, idealism, contradiction, non-contradiction, metaphysics

Antimo Lucarelli. (2026). Senses and Forms of Error in The Originary Structure by Emanuele Severino. Philosophy Study, Sept.-Oct. 2026, Vol. 16, No. 5, 494-503.