Philosophy for reading the present · Manifesto
Palimpsesto
Manifesto and reading guide
“Beneath every written word lies another that came before it; beneath every new idea beats an older story.”
01 · The space
A living tool for thinking
Palimpsesto is a space where philosophy is not a mere academic exercise but a living tool for interpreting the complexity of today's world.
We borrow this powerful metaphor from ancient manuscripts: texts written over other texts, layers of thought in dialogue across time. As in a palimpsest, every idea that emerges today in culture, politics, science or education bears earlier inscriptions, conceptual traces that — though sometimes invisible — still shape the way we see.
The lens: what we read
- The ethical dilemmas of artificial intelligence.
- The paradoxes of hyperconnectivity.
- The educational challenges of societies with unlimited information.
- The fragility of democracies.
- The transformation of work, identity and the meaning of life in an age of automation.
The rereading: how we read it
- Classical philosophers read in a present-day key (Arendt, Foucault, Camus, Heidegger, Frankl…).
- Philosophical concepts applied to debates on AI, neuroscience, technology and economics.
- Short essays that invite us to pause, to question ourselves and to rethink our certainties.
Because, in the end,everything new is written over the old. And understanding that background lets us look at the present with more clarity, less naivety and greater depth.
02 · Manifesto
At a time when the rush of novelty seems to sweep away everything that came before, when every technological advance is presented as a rupture and every trend as a ground zero, Palimpsesto is born to reclaim something essential:
Nothing we live through is entirely new.
Every idea, every problem, every dilemma of the present carries beneath its surface the layers of thought of those who tried to understand the world before us. We are heirs to old questions, and new ones are joining them:
What does it mean to be free?
What makes a life just?
How do we decide when information is infinite?
A space to pause.To think again.To read the present like a manuscript.
We're not looking for closed answers. We're looking, as the Stoics put it, to “train the gaze”: to learn to look at the world with philosophical depth without losing sensitivity to its complexity. From classical philosophy to the challenges of artificial intelligence, from the ethical dilemmas of power to the paradoxes of education in an age of hyperconnectivity, Palimpsesto is a workshop of applied thinking.
We invite anyone who wants to pause, think and think again. Because only those who can read beneath the fresh ink of the news will be able to act clearly in a time saturated with noise.
03 · Editorial structure
What you'll find
Layered readings
Current issues interpreted through great classical and contemporary thinkers.
- Arendt and the banality of evil in the age of algorithms
- Heidegger facing digital obsolescence
- Kahneman, biases and viral disinformation
Dilemmas of the present
Short essays on today's ethical, political and social dilemmas.
- Is responsible AI possible?
- Education in times of permanent distraction
- Work as a philosophical problem of the 21st century
Fundamental questions
Short, powerful texts that recover the great philosophical questions and apply them to everyday life.
- What is freedom when algorithms are watching us?
- Does it make sense to talk about truth in the post-truth era?
- What is a good life in times of burnout?
The logbook of thought
Micro-reflections and quick notes for social media, newsletters and readers on the go.
- Ideas to think about over a coffee
- Pocket philosophy
- Micro-thoughts on everyday life
Palimpsesto Dialogues
Conversations and interviews with thinkers, educators, technologists, scientists and artists who bring philosophical perspectives to today's reality.
04 · The purpose
Why and for whom
What this space is for
- To recover the art of thinking slowly in times of speed and superficiality.
- To build bridges between philosophy, innovation and everyday life.
- To build judgement in a world saturated with information but poor in understanding.
Who it's for
- Educators and students.
- Entrepreneurs and decision-makers.
- The curious.
- Professionals in culture, technology and education looking for thinking tools to act in the present.
Why “Palimpsesto” today
- Because we inhabit a world of layers: of knowledge, of discourse, of data.
- Because ideas survive, mutate and talk back to their earlier versions.
- Because in a world that quickly erases its traces, we need to reread the invisible strokes that hold up our questions.
Editorial aim
Reading beyond the first layers
- 01Build judgement.
- 02Avoid superficiality.
- 03Connect philosophy, culture, education, AI and everyday life.
- 04Invite readers beyond the first layers.