ABSTRACT
In the Paradiso, self-reflectiveness, for all its linguistic self-consciousness, is not just empty, formal repetition: it is ontologically productive. Even thematically and narratively, speculation has an active, effective role as a “making”. Dante’s speculative regard immediately results in a specular doubling of the phenomena of heaven itself in what suggests a leap from the sensible to an intelligible order. Indeed speculation consists in a reprise and a giving back of what is given, namely, sensation, but without the same limitations of time and place. In reflection, all is transfigured by being repeatable and universalizable. Being is rather pluralized by being repeated as an image. Being, in its intrinsic infinity and freedom, is infinitely speculative and can produce images of being without limit.
