The wisdom of language: an enquiry into the origins, meaning and present-day relevance of ‘responsibility’

ABSTRACT

In this article I endeavour to clarify the meaning of ‘responsibility’, which in the last decades has become a cornerstone of the ethical and political debate. To this end, I carry out an etymological enquiry into this notion with respect to antique and modern European languages. The thesis I argue is that language evidences a unique capacity to cherish, nurture, and foresee with a touch of wisdom an inexhaustible repertoire of existential meanings, which take the stage in human endeavours. As a result, this enquiry helps to understand the original relational and future-oriented significance of ‘responsibility’. Additionally, the analysis steers clear of incorrect or incomplete interpretations, as well as of those willing to deal with the complex and multifaced meaning of ‘responsibility’ in a purely logical-analytical way, which results in moving to the background, if not disregarding altogether, its historical and linguistic stratifications, which are in fact relevant to the full comprehension of this notion.

KEYWORDS:

• responsibility
• etymology
• future
• relationships

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See for instance the famous book published under the title The Limits to Growth (1972), the first UN Conference on the Environment held in 1972 in Stockholm, as well as the debate regarding ‘sustainable development’ culminating in the so-called Brundtland Report (1987) and recently updated by the UN Agenda 2030. Worth remembering are also the following contemporaneous philosophical works by A. Næss, J. Passmore, J. Bennett, and J. Lovelock.

2 Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility. In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age, trans. Hans Jonas and David Herr (Chicago-London: Chicago University Press, 1984), 26–8, 87, 89–90.

3 Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self. Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), 152.

4 Ibid., 152–3.

5 Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge-London: Harvard University Press, 1982).

6 Elena Pulcini, L’individuo senza passioni. Individualismo moderno e perdita del legame sociale (Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2001), 19.

7 Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility, 136.

8 Other contemporary scholars like Emmanuel Lévinas, Bernhard Waldenfels, Margaret Urban Walker, and Joan Tronto should be also mentioned in this regard, although I cannot provide a full account of their thinking in this article.

9 Giorgio Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive, trans. David Heller-Roazen (New York: Zone Books, 1999), 20.

10 Ibid., 22.

11 Fabrizio Turoldo, Bioetica ed etica della responsabilità. Dai fondamenti teorici alle applicazioni pratiche (Assisi: Cittadella, 2009), 8, 33–7, 39–40.

12 See for instance Carla Bagnoli, Teoria della responsabilità (Bologna: il Mulino, 2019); Matthew Talbert, ‘Moral Responsibility’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2019), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/ (accessed June 27, 2023).

13 Jean de Stavelot, Chronique, ed. Ad. Borgnet (Bruxelles: Hayez, 1861), 566, https://books.google.com.br/books?id=SFuuF1rC8iQC&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023). See also Sandro Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, in Illecito e pena privata in età repubblicana, ed. F. Milazzo (Napoli: Esi, 1992), 129–87; Maria Antonietta Foddai, Sulle tracce della responsabilità. Idee e norme dell’agire responsabile (Torino: Giappichelli, 2005).

14 Heinrich Zeller-Werdmüller, ed., Die Züricher Stadtbücher des XIV. und XV. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1899), 266, https://archive.org/details/diezrcherstadt01zruoft/page/266/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater (accessed June 26, 2023). See also Ulrike Köbler, Wandel und Wesen des deutschen Privatrechtswortschatzes (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2010), 187, who points also out that already by the year 900 the term is used with this very meaning.

15 Franz Pfeiffer, ed., Deutsche Mystiker des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Göschen, 1857), 211, https://books.google.com.br/books?id=3nQFAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023). See also Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, 33 volumes (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch, 1984), vol. 10, c. 136 (entry ‘Haftung’), http://dwb.uni-trier.de and https://woerterbuchnetz.de/?sigle=DWB#0 (accessed June 27, 2023).

16 Johannes Janssen, Frankfurts Reichscorrespondenz nebst andern verwandten Aktenstücken von 1376–1519, vol. 2.2: Aus der Zeit Kaiser Maximilians I.: 1486–1519 (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1872), 459, https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/janssen1872bd2_2 (accessed June 27, 2023).

17 Ibid., 460.

18 Ibid., 475. See Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 25, cc. 81–82 (entry ‘Verantwortung’).

19 Augustus II, Duke of Brunswick, in Das Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 17. Jahrhunderts, 23. See also Köbler, Wandel und Wesen des deutschen Privatrechtswortschatzes, 188, and Kaspar von Stieler, Der Teutschen Sprache Stammbaum (Nürnberg: Hofmann, 1691), 817; Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 184.

20 Weimarer Statts-Archiv, 1665, cited by Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 25, c. 82 (entry ‘Verantwortung’).

21 Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, Der abentheurliche Simplicissimus Teutsch und Continuatio des abentheurlichen Simplicissimi (1668–1669), ed. R. Tarot (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1967), Book 6, Chap. 6, 496 [30], https://archive.org/details/derabentheurlich0000grim/ (accessed June 26, 2023). See also Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 25, c. 82 (entry ‘Verantwortung’).

22 Gian Rinaldo Carli, letter dated March 16, 1760, published in B. Ziliotto, ‘Trecentosessantasei lettere di Gian Rinaldo Carli capodistriano cavate dagli originali e annotate’, Archeografo triestino, vol. 4, 3rd series (1908): 66. See also Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, ed. S. Battaglia, 21 volumes (Torino: Utet, 1961–2002), vol. 15 (1990), 880 (entry ‘responsabile’). The occurrences in Italian from 1760 to 1792 are detailed in Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 179–180.

23 The Gentleman’s Magazine, XXXVI (August 1766), 350–1, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hw293n&view=1up&seq=376 (accessed June 27, 2023). See also Gunnar von Proschwitz, ‘Responsabilité: l’idée et le mot dans le débat politique du XVIIIe siècle’, in Linguistique et philologie romanes. Actes de Xe congres international de linguistique et philologie romanes, ed. G. Straka (Paris: Klincksieck, 1965), 389.

24 The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, vol. 24, ed. W. Cobbett (London: Hansard, 1815), 199, https://books.google.com.br/books?id=tW0xAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023).

25 Despite their similarity, the word ‘accountableness’ is different from ‘accountability’, which is only attested since 1750 (The Oxford English Dictionary, ed. J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, 20 volumes, 2nd edition [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989], vol. 1, entry ‘accountability’, https://www.oed.com/ [accessed June 27, 2023]). Later in this article I will discuss the plurality of English synonyms for ‘responsibility’ (‘accountability’, ‘answerability’, amenability’, ‘liability’), as well as the related adjectives.

26 Robert Bolton, Some Generall Directions for a Comfortable Walking with God, 2nd edition (London: Kyngston, 1626), 124, 142, https://ota.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repository/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.12024/A16338/A16338.html?sequence=5&isAllowed=y

27 Foddai, Sulle tracce della responsabilità, 21.

28 Gunnar von Proschwitz, ‘Responsabilité: l’idée et le mot dans le débat politique du XVIIIe siècle’, in Idées et mots au siècle des lumières (Göteborg: Wettergrens and Paris: Touzot, 1988), 79–92, with the following annexes: 92–93 (discussion), 94–95 (post-scriptum). Here quoted from p. 94.

29 Proschwitz, ‘Responsabilité’ (1965), 385, 391–3. Von Proschwitz highlights the role of primary importance of the French press in familiarising the public with the English political debate, and cites the case of the Courier de l’Europe, a newspaper distributed in France but edited and printed in London.

30 See the Courier de l’Europe, XIV (November 21, 1783), 330, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1516326s/f2.item (accessed June 27, 2023) and see also Proschwitz, ‘Responsabilité’ (1965), 392–3; The Morning Chronicle (November 19, 1783), quoted by Proschwitz, ‘Responsabilité’ (1965), 390.

31 Proschwitz (‘Responsabilité’ [1965], 386) states that Necker’s book sold 80.000 copies. Among the scholars who highlighted Necker’s use of the noun ‘responsibility’, are the following: Jean-François Féraud, Dictionnaire critique de la langue française, 3 volumes (Marseille: 1787–1788); Ferdinand Brunot, ‘Responsabilité’, in A Grammatical Miscellany Offered to Otto Jespersen on his Seventieth Birthday (Copenhagen-London: 1930), 401–4; Ferdinand Brunot, ‘Nouveaux principes d’administration: la responsabilité’, in id., Histoire de la langue française des origines à 1900, vol. 9.2 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1937), 1049–53.

32 See Jacques Necker, De l’Administration des finances de la France, 1784, vol. 1, 108 and vol. 2, 448 https://books.google.com.br/books?id=_RQFpAPMPlgC&printsec=frontcover&hl=pt-BR#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023).

33 Antônio Geraldo da Cunha, Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th edition (Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, 2010), 560; João Malaca Casteleiro, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (Lisboa: Verbo, 2001), vol. 2, 3223, entries ‘responsabilidade’ e ‘responsável’; Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 176–7. As for other languages, see the following: Castilian Spanish (Joan Corominas, Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana [Madrid: Gredos, 1987]), Catalan (Joan Coromines, Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana [Barcelona: Curial Edicions Catalanes, 1987], vol. 7, 278–9, entry ‘respondre’), and Mandarin Chinese (Tche-hao Tsien, ‘La notion de responsabilité en droit chinois’, Archives de philosophie du droit 22 [1977]: 161–74).

34 Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay (pseudonym Publius), The Federalist (1788) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 306. See also Joan Tronto, Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice (New York-London: New York University Press, 2013), 50.

35 Heinrich Heine, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 9 (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1885), 65, 108, 110, 112, 113, 120, 230, https://books.google.rw/books?id=KelfC0yumpUC&printsec=frontcover&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023); Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 25, c. 81 (entry ‘Verantwortlichkeit’).

36 Friedrich Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 24th edition (Berlin-NewYork: de Gruyter, 2002), 383 (entry ‘haften’), 949–50 (entry ‘ver-’), 950 (entry ‘verantworten’); Matthias Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 volumes (Stuttgart: Hirzel, 1869–1872), vol. 1, c. 83 (entries ‘antworten’ and ‘antwerten’), vol. 1, c. 1140–1141 (entry ‘haften’), vol. 3, c. 69–70 (entries ‘verantwürten’ and ‘verantworten’), https://woerterbuchnetz.de/?sigle=Lexer#0 (accessed June 27, 2023); Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 184; Köbler, Wandel und Wesen des deutschen Privatrechtswortschatzes, 186–9.

37 In this regard, see the following basic scholarship: Richard McKeon, ‘The Development and the Significance of the Concept of Responsibility’, Revue internationale de Philosophie 11, 39, 1 (1957): 3–32; Proschwitz, ‘Responsabilité’ (1965); Michel Villey, ‘Esquisse historique sur le mot responsible’, Archives de philosophie de droit 22 (1977): 45–58; Jacques Henriot, ‘Note sur la date et le sens de l’apparition du mot “responsabilité”’, Archives de philosophie de droit 22 (1977): 59–62; Geneviève Viney, ‘Responsabilité’, Archives de philosophie de droit 35 (1990): 275–92; Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’; Paul Ricœur, ‘The Concept of Responsibility: An Essay in Semantic Analysis’, in Id., The Just, trans. David Pellauer (Chicago-London: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 11–35; Jean-Louis Genard, La grammaire de la responsabilité (Paris: Cerf, 1999); Foddai, Sulle tracce della responsabilità.

38 Alfred Ernout and Antoine Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine. Histoire de mots, 4th edition (Paris: Klincksieck, 2001), 643.

39 Karl Ernst Georges and Ferruccio Calonghi, Dizionario della lingua latina, 3rd edition (Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1957), vol. 1, cc. 2387–2388 (entry ‘respondĕo’); Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 161–70.

40 See Ernout and Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, 565–6 (entry ‘re-‘), 643–4 (entry ‘spondeō’); Alois Walde, Lateinisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 5th edition (Heidelberg: Winter Universitätsverlag, 1972), vol. 2, 422 (entry ‘re-‘), 578–9 (entry ‘spondeō’); Georges and Calonghi, Dizionario della lingua latina, vol. 1, cc. 2582–2583 (entry ‘respondĕo’).

41 See Ernout and Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, 643; Georges and Calonghi, Dizionario della lingua latina, vol. 1, cc. 2582–2583.

42 Émile Benveniste, Indo-European Language and Society, trans. Elizabeth Palmer (Miami: Miami University Press, 1973), 684, 692, https://chs.harvard.edu/read/benveniste-emile-indo-european-language-and-society/ (accessed June 27, 2023).

43 Ibid., 689.

44 Ibid., 689.

45 Titus Maccius Plautus, Captivi (“The Captives”), Actus IV, IV.2, vv. 898–9, https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/plautus/captivi.shtml (accessed June 27, 2023); Benveniste, Indo-European Language and Society, 690–1.

46 Georges and Calonghi, Dizionario della lingua latina, vol. 1, c. 2584.

47 Villey, ‘Esquisse historique sur le mot responsible’, 46–7; Foddai, Sulle tracce della responsabilità, 13–14.

48 Villey, ‘Esquisse historique sur le mot responsible’, 46.

49 Benveniste, Indo-European Language and Society, 630, 691.

50 Joël Janiaud, ‘“Me voici!”. Kierkegaard et Lévinas. Les tensions de la responsabilité’, Archives de Philosophie 60 (1997): 98; Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 950.

51 Foddai, Sulle tracce della responsabilità, 15.

52 See also Genard, La grammaire de la responsabilité.

53 Foddai, Sulle tracce della responsabilità, 16.

54 Ibid., 13, 28–33. See also Uberto Scarpelli, ‘Riflessioni sulla responsabilità politica. Responsabilità, libertà, visione dell’uomo’, in La responsabilità politica. Diritto e tempo, Atti del XIII Congresso Nazionale della Società Italiana di Filosofia Giuridica e Politica, ed. R. Orecchia (Milano: Giuffrè, 1982), 41–95. It is worth noting that the codification of the current notion of ‘legal responsibility’ begins in the 3rd century B.C. when, based on the principle of ‘neminem laedere’ (‘not to undermine the right of the other’), the Lex Aquilia de damno extends the category of ‘unjust damage’ to previously unprotected cases (see Schipani, 'Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità'). However, from the linguistic point of view, this process of codification has no intersection with the contemporaneous verb ‘respondēre’ – and this indirectly confirms the thesis that the ancient ‘respondēre’ and the modern ‘responsibility’ do not have the same meaning.

55 Indeed, providing a full account of how this semantic dialectic evolved across the centuries up to present-day issues related to, say, environmental responsibility goes beyond the scope of this article. However, what might be highlighted is that the current extension of responsibility beyond the sole modern notions of imputation and sanction relies also on the appearance of ‘social risks’ during the 19th century. Dealing effectively with these risks entailed going beyond the juridical paradigm of responsibility and focussing on prevention instead. What was called for was a ‘socialisation of responsibilities’, which lead to the development of social solidarity by means of insurance companies and the welfare state (François Ewald, The Birth of Solidarity [Durham-London: Duke University Press, 2020]). I wish to thank one of the anonymous referees for pointing this out.

56 See for instance Turoldo, Bioetica ed etica della responsabilità, 8, 33–7, 39–40.

57 It is worth noting that the early modern European languages have the capacity to influence coeval Latin, and not vice-versa. For instance, the medieval Latin adjective ‘responsabilis’ (1458) derives from the French ‘responable’ (1304) and ‘responsable’ (1309) (McKeon, ‘The Development and the Significance of the Concept of Responsibility’, 8–9; Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 161). The same is with the Latin noun ‘responsabilitas’.

58 Corominas, Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 505; Cunha, Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 560. The difference between Spanish and Portuguese is that in the former the term comes from Latin, whereas in the latter it is an adaptation of the French ‘responsable’.

59 De termino Sancti Hillarii, 1304, in Year Books of the Reign of Edward the first, Years XXXII–XXXIII, ed. A. J. Horwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 31–3. See also Frédéric Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe Siècle, 25 volumes (Paris: Bouillon, 1881), vol. 7, 115 (entry ‘responable’), www.archive.org (accessed June 27, 2023).

60 Liv. rouge de l’échevin., 1309, in Arch. Admin. de Reims, 2, 1st part, 96, unpublished document cited by Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française, vol. 7, 116.

61 Paul Robert, Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, ed. A. Rey (Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert, 1992), 1785 (entry ‘responsable’). Robert evidences also the existence of ‘responsavle’, which is attested as early as 1284 with the following meaning: it is a ‘feudal term referring to a person assigned the life-long burden of paying a lord the annuity of an ecclesiastical fief’ (Ibid., 1785). See also Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française, vol. 7, 116; Oscar Bloch and Walther von Wartburg, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1964), 550.

62 Robert, Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, 1785.

63 Félix Gaffiot, Dictionnaire illustré latin-français (Paris: Hachette, 1934), 732 (entry ‘Habilis’); Viney, ‘Responsabilité’, 276.

64 See Ben Jonson, Every Man out of His Humour, in The Works of Ben Jonson, vol. 2, ed. W. Gifford (London: Bulmer, 1816), Act II, Scene I, 62, https://books.google.com.br/books?id=Sm5KAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023). See also Simpson and Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 12 (entry ‘responsible’). According to the same source, since 1641 it is also possible to find the less common ‘responsable’ (Ibid., vol. 12, entry ‘responsable’).

65 See William Prynne, The Soveraigne Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes (London: Michael Sparke, 1643), https://books.google.com.br/books?id=icg_AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023), III, App., 12; Simpson and Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 12 (entry ‘responsible’).

66 See Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Colony of Massachuset’s Bay (London: 1765), 452, https://books.google.com.br/books?id=uNdI3RuVqn4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023); Simpson and Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 12, entry ‘responsible’).

67 See Eric Partridge, Origins. A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th edition (London: Routledge & Kegan, 1966), 149; Simpson and Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 5 (entry ‘despond’), vol. 12 (entries ‘respond’ and ‘respound’); Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 172–3.

68 See Simpson and Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 12 (entry ‘responsal’), which quotes the following excerpt written in 1400: ‘Such answers us purvey that they been insolibil, / Tomorow at our apparaunce, and shull be responsaill. / For of wele and elles, it is thy day fynall!’ (John M. Bowers, ‘The Canterbury Interlude and Merchant’s Tale of Beryn’, in The Canterbury Tales: Fifteenth-Century Continuations and Additions, ed. J. M. Bowers [Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992], vv. 2622–2624, https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/bowers-canterbury-tales-fifteenth-century-interlude-and-marchants-tale-of-beryn [accessed June 27, 2023]).

69 See Simpson and Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 12 (entry ‘responsible’); Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 173; Foddai, Sulle tracce della responsabilità, 18.

70 ‘Answerableness’ (since 1583), ‘liableness’ (since 1645), ‘accountableness’ (since 1625), ‘amenability’ (since 1789), ‘accountability’ (since 1750), and ‘liability’ (since 1794), ‘amenableness’ (since 1849), ‘answerability’ (since 1929). See Simpson and Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 1 (entry ‘accountableness’, 'accountability'), vol. 2 (entries ‘answerableness’, ‘amenability’, ‘amenableness’, ‘answerability’), vol. 8 (entries ‘liability’ and ‘liableness’).

71 In this regard, Proschwitz (‘Responsabilité’ [1965], 388–9) mentions texts dating from 1726, 1733, and 1735. The related adjectives appeared in the following years: ‘liable’ since 1542–1543; ‘answerable’ since 1548; ‘accountable’ since 1583; ‘amenable’ since 1596 (Simpson and Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 1 [entry ‘accountable'], vol. 2 [entries ‘amenable’, ‘answerable’], vol. 8 [entry ‘liable’]; Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 173–4). For the etymological analysis of these English adjectives, see Partridge, Origins, 124 (entry ‘count’, the root of ‘accountable’), 354 (entry ‘ligament’, from which originates ‘liable’), 403 (entry ‘minatory’, the root of ‘amenable’). The relationship between the nouns ‘responsibility’ and ‘accountability’ has been analysed by McKeon, ‘The Development and the Significance of the Concept of Responsibility’, 8.

72 Gian Pietro Bergantini, Voci italiane d’autori approvati dalla Crusca nel Vocabolario d’essa non registrate con altre appartenenti per lo più ad arti e scienze che ci sono somministrate similmente da buoni autori (Venezia: Bassaglia, 1745), 328, https://books.google.com.br/books?id=dlOLQdHfhJUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023).

73 Statuto di Massa Fiscaglia, 1470, 1, 42, cited by Giulio Rezasco, Dizionario del linguaggio italiano storico ed amministrativo (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1881), 957, https://books.google.com.br/books?id=zMVHAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023). See also Battaglia, Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, vol. 15, 882 (entry ‘responsale’); Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 178.

74 Account given by the ambassador Francesco Giavarina to the Senate of Venice on December, 7, 1657, quoted in Le relazioni degli Stati europei lette al Senato dagli ambasciatori veneti nel secolo decimosettimo, ed. N. Barozzi and G. Berchet (Venezia: Tip. di P. Naratovich, 1863), 409, https://books.google.com.br/books?id=R8txo1EUwCgC&printsec=frontcover&hl=it#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023). See also Battaglia, Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, vol. 15, 879–80. It is likely that the dialogue between Cromwell and Giaravina had been held in French, which at that time was the official language of diplomacy. As a result, the appearance of the Italian ‘risponsabile’ is to be attributed to the influence of French.

75 Niccolò Tommaseo and Bernardo Bellini, Dizionario della Lingua Italiana (Torino: Utet, 1861–1879), vol. 4.1 (1872), 381.

76 Ibid., vol. 4.1, 381.

77 Ibid., vol. 4.1, 381.

78 Foddai, Sulle tracce della responsabilità, 26.

79 Ferdinando Galiani, De’ doveri de’ principi neutrali verso i principi guerreggianti, e di questi verso i neutrali (1782), 182, https://www.google.com.br/books/edition/De_doveri_de_principi_neutrali_verso_i_p/ob8-AAAAYAAJ?hl=it&kptab=editions&gbpv=1 (accessed June 27, 2023).

80 Ibid., 182.

81 Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 10, cc. 133–135; Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, vol. 1, cc. 1140–1141.

82 See Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 125, 135 (the word ‘haftēn’ belongs to Althochdeutsch, while ‘hafton’ to altsächsische Sprache); Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, vol. 1, c. 1204.

83 Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 184. Schipani mentions Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 10, c. 132 (entry ‘haften’, meaning n. 4).

84 Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 25, cc. 79–81; Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, vol. 3, cc. 69–70. On the confusion between ‘antwort’ (‘responsum’) and ‘antwert’ (‘praesentia’), see Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 1, c. 509 (entry ‘antworten’).

85 The first appearances of the verb are mentioned in Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 25, cc. 79–81, and taken from the following historical sources: Die Chroniken der deutschen Städte vom 14. bis ins 16. Jahrhundert, 4, 105, 18; 8, 420; and 8, 37, 30); Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter König Wenzel – 1376–1387, Part 1, ed. J. Weizsäcker (München: Cotta, 1867), 13 (line 13), https://books.google.com.br/books?id=o-tCAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023).

86 See Samuel von Butschky, Pathmos (Leipzig: Grosse, 1677), 283, https://books.google.com.br/books?id=0dcAAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023). See also Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 25, c. 81.

87 See Christoph Martin Wieland, Politische Werke, vol. 3, ed. J. G. Gruber (Leipzig: Göschen, 1822), 5, 38, 146, 238, https://books.google.com.br/books?id=R_Rw4QY_cUUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed June 27, 2023).

88 See Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 184. In this sense, there is a direct connection – which the Germanophone legal context will successively develop – between ‘verantworten’ and ‘Zurechnung’ (‘imputability’). See Ricœur, ‘The Concept of Responsibility’; Jan Joerden, ‘Zurechnung’, Enzyklopädie zur Rechtsphilosophie (2011), http://www.enzyklopaedie-rechtsphilosophie.net/inhaltsverzeichnis/19-beitraege/99-zurechnung (accessed June 27, 2023); Claudia Blöser, Zurechnung bei Kant. Zum Zusammenhang von Person und Handlung in Kants praktischer Philosophie (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014).

89 Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 185; Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 997 (entry ‘Wort’).

90 Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 51 (entry ‘Antwort’); Albert Lloyd and Otto Springer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988–2021), vol. 1, 288 ff.

91 Schipani, ‘Lex Aquilia, culpa, responsabilità’, 184. See also Giulia Battistoni (ed.), Fondamenti per un agire responsabile (Milano: FrancoAngeli, 2020).

92 Ricœur, ‘The Concept of Responsibility’, 15–19.

93 Ibid., 13.

94 Foddai, Sulle tracce della responsabilità, 14, 31.

95 According to Jonas, it is especially thanks to technology that human intervention gains relevance beyond the individual and thus calls for an urgent reflection on collective responsibility. I can only mention that also other contemporary scholars, like Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Lévinas, John Passmore, and Joan Tronto, have dealt in a plurality of ways with the problematic relationship between individual and collective responsibility.

96 Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility, 87.

97 Ibid.