Levi, Primo
Primo Levi (1919–1987) was born to an assimilated Jewish family in Turin, Italy. In 1944, after training as a chemist, Levi joined a group of antifascist partisans, was captured, and was deported to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. He survived and returned to Turin in1945, at which point he embarked on joint careers as an industrial chemist and an author, publishing the account of his experiences titled Se questo e un uomo (If this is a man) in 1947. The book, published in the United States as Survival in Auschwitz, is considered to be among the finest accounts of the death camps.
Primo Levi, 1919–1987. An Italian author and chemist, Levi was considered one of the foremost writers of concentration camp literature. (The Library of Congress.)Levi retired from his work as a chemist in 1978 and fell to his death in his Turin apartment building on April 11, 1987. Debate continues about whether Levi, who experienced repeated bouts of depression, killed himself or fell by accident.
Throughout his work Levi stressed the connections between science, literature, and ethics. His use of chemistry as an inspiration for storytelling in The Periodic Table (1984) made scientists more attuned to literature and readers of literature more appreciative of science.
One theme unifying Levi's diverse essays and short stories is his belief in the importance and value of work. Levi believed that human beings are naturally constituted to need to work, to strive toward a goal and solve problems encountered in doing so. He emphasized the importance of practice and effort and saw science as a particularly important forum for the struggle to survive and grow.
Levi argued that technology does not necessarily alienate humanity from nature but can enhance the rapport between them. At the same time he emphasized the capacity of humanity for self-transformation, which necessarily means defying and altering nature. He believed that through its inventions humankind has turned its back on nature, damaging both people and the natural world but also improving the lot, and raising the stature, of individuals. Levi argued that one must learn from nature but that one also learns from struggling against it.
Levi eschewed both triumphalism and despair regarding humanity's prospects and the contributions to them made by science. He emphasized that progress will always be noisy, dangerous, and limited. However, because people are adaptable and capable of courage, reason, and strength, progress is possible. Levi celebrated the "cheerful strength" and "sober joy" connected with thought and invention, which allow human beings to endure and learn. He spoke of himself as a man sustained by curiosity about the world and emphasized the value of the inquiry that human curiosity fuels. However, he also acknowledged that the struggle to unlock the secrets of nature through measurement and categorization can be monstrous as well as heroic.
Levi, who was particularly worried by the proliferation of nuclear weapons, called on his fellow scientists and technicians to "return to conscience," to become aware of their immense and potentially sinister power. He insisted that science is not neutral; it either helps or harms human beings. Scientists should not stop doing research for fear of the possible negative consequences of their work, but they should concern themselves with the results of their work and avoid research that leads to immoral results. Scientists should resist the temptation of material rewards and intellectual stimulation, engage in work that will benefit and not harm their fellow human beings, and speak out against the misuse of science by others.
Levi's short stories often satirize the arrogance, ambition, and desire for control or enrichment that can lead scientists to ignore or abandon moral scruples in pursuing and applying knowledge. He warned against submissiveness to power and urged that "a precise moral consciousness" be instilled in scientists as part of their training; he also recommended that scientists take a sort of Hippocratic oath to do no harm (Levi 2001, pp. 71, 89–90).
Levi's reflections on the ethical dimension of science emphasize potential benefits as well as limitations, hope as well as danger, and the joys of discovery as well as moral responsibility. He believed that human beings are alone in a universe not made for their well-being and warned that although science gradually reveals the secrets of the cosmos, those secrets do not provide answers to "big questions" regarding the aims of human life; those answers can come only from within human beings. People's reason for being, he concluded, rests on their nature as, in the words Levi quoted from Pascal, "thinking reeds" who seek knowledge and excellence, and this quest is the source of human dignity.
Holocaust;; Science, Technology, and Literature;; Work;; Scientific Ethics.
Bibliography
Levi, Primo. (Italian edition 1947; English edition 1961). Se questo e un uomo [Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi assault on humanity], trans. Stuart Woolf. New York: Collier. Reprint, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Levi's first book, an account of, and meditation on, his experiences at Auschwitz.
Levi, Primo. (1966). Storie naturali. Selections published in English in The Sixth Day, trans. Raymond Rosenthal. Turin: Einaudi; London: Michael Joseph, 1990
Levi, Primo. (1971). Vizio di forma. Selections Published in English in The Sixth Day, trans. Raymond Rosenthal. Turin: Einaudi; London: Michael Joseph, 1990. A collection of short stories, many of them fantastic parables addressing the moral dimensions of science and technology.
Levi, Primo. (Italian edition 1975; English edition 1984). Il sistema periodico [The periodic table], trans. Raymond Rosenthal. Turin: Eidaudi; New York: Schocken. A collection of autobiographical tales and reflections, each one associated with and inspired by an element from the periodic table.
Levi, Primo. (Italian edition 1986; English edition 1989). Racconti e saggi [The mirror maker], trans. Raymond Rosenthal. New York: Schocken. A collection of short stories and essays, many of them addressing the ethics of scientific work.
Levi, Primo. (2001). The Voice of Memory: Interviews, 1961–87, ed. Marco Belpoliti and Robert Gordon. New York: New Press.
Thomson, Ian. (2002). Primo Levi. London: Hitchison.
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