Starting point of the paper is the recent book titled Effetto Italian Thought (Italian Thought Effect). The paper discusses what it means for a philosophical theory to have an effect and proposes a distinction between ‘having’ an effect and ‘being’ an effect. Then, it considers Esposito’s thesis according to which the Italian Thought has produced a new turn in contemporary philosophy: from the linguistic turn of the Twentieth Century to a biological turn. The paper takes into account three different positions about the problem of life (Esposito, Agamben and Cimatti). It suggests, in conclusion, that the Italian Thought has relevant effects on the philosophical development of this topic, but it is not an effect, because it is still challenging, as most of contemporary philosophy, with the still dominant language-centered paradigm inherited from the Twentieth Century.