Franco Volpi (philosopher)

Franco Volpi (4 October 1952 in Vicenza – 14 April 2009), was a philosopher, historian of philosophy and a professor at Padua University, who wrote regularly for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Volpi was an expert in German philosophy, in particular Martin Heidegger and Arthur Schopenhauer. He investigated the relationship between nihilism and the nothing, and between philosophy and current psychology. In one of his works, he wrote that "real philosophical questions have a history but have no answer". For him, nihilism undermines truth, weakens religion and dissolves dogmatism. Volpi also taught at the University of Witten/Herdecke as well as the universities of Laval, Poitiers and Nice. Volpi died on 14 April 2009, at the age of 56, after being run over by an automobile as he rode his bicycle.