The age of systems in Jean Robert’s The Thought of the Late Illich

Abstract

L’età dei sistemi nel pensiero dell’ultimo Illich (The Age of Systems in the Thought of the Late Illich) was published in Italian by Hermatena in Bologna, Italy, in November 2019. Offering evidence of the richness and breadth of the last twenty years of Ivan Illich’s research, it appears in Italy as the first work to explicitly address the thought of the late Illich, allowing us to delve into the questions raised and investigated by the thinker and his collaborators in those years—years in which the print runs of Illich’s books and texts dropped considerably but which, contrary to appearances, as Robert attests, were the most prolific in terms of publications. Robert writes about this from a privileged position, having lived and animated those conversations first-hand and through his long friendship with Ivan Illich; a privileged position, yes, but at the same time a dangerous one, because it could have led him to claim to tell the “truth” about what his friend would have said or written. But Jean Robert, owing both to his ethical and human fabric and to his respect for thought as such and for his friendship with Illich, does not fall into that trap. He writes in the same style in which he spoke, wrote or engaged with the work of the great critical thinker and philosopher throughout his life—as with a tireless interlocutor with whom, through writing, he continues to converse.