Rischio della presenza in Ernesto De Martino

Abstract

Ernesto De Martino’s research in magic and anthropology concentrates on a vast material concerning ethnology, philosophy and history of culture. His way to solving problems on risk of human presence in front of the world involves a theory of symbolic forms as origin of civilization and the idea of the sacred as absolute ground of religious sense. De Martino thinks that a magic world is an historical world, and that our occidental method of inquiring magic has some limits.